Good morning everyone! My husband and I and my elderly mother, who walks a bit slow has slight mobility issues, will be going with us to Paris in September and would like to take a day trip to normandy. I reached out to Overlord tours and asked if they thought my mom would be a good fit they said no that we were better off doing the private tour which is quite a bit more expensive. Does anyone have any suggestions on how we might best get to Normandy and see everything, do we even need a tour guide?
Posted by
Middletown, RI
1610 posts
If you have a car and take just a little time to learn about the basic history and lay of the land, you do not need to hire a guide. But there is no real public transportation once you get there and the sites are spread out over 50 miles. And I always recommend against a "day trip" to Normandy. Regardless of what you plan, I would recommend two things:
Spend more than one day. Seriously, the place is worth it. And while I adore Normandy and go every other year, if all you have is one day (which will mostly be spent just getting there and back), I recommend you do something else that day. I usually spend 10–12 days at a time in Normandy. Last month I spent four days—which was my shortest trip so far (out of ten).
Learn some basic history before you go. You will get so much more out of your trip if you read at least one book or watch a couple of good movies. This applies whether you hire a tour guide or roll your own. You don't need a tour guide to spend your precious time giving you a very basic history lesson that you can get before you go during the planning stages (when you have more time and it is less expensive). And every tour guide I know is wealth of knowledge. They will have tons of information and stories for you regardless of how much you learn ahead of time.
Posted by
OP
40 posts
We will not be driving. We will be dependent upon public transportation.
Posted by
Surrey, UK
1002 posts
I assume that you mean the beaches, museums and memorials etc.
As PP says, there is virtually no public transportation once there.
So, if you are not driving yourselves, a tour is the only real way.
Posted by
Lexington, KY (formerly Southeast US)
4777 posts
Does anyone have any suggestions on how we might best get to Normandy
and see everything
Unfortunately, the best a day trip to Normandy can do is give you an introduction to the area. I agree with Pharmer Phil, a multi-day trip is worthwhile and is going to give you far more exposure to the area and a better understanding of Operation Overlord. You still won't see everything but can see a lot of things.
Many people, however, only have time and/or interest for a day trip, and a day trip is certainly better than nothing. While a day trip in my estimation is not preferable, it's certainly okay if that is all you have time to do.
do we even need a tour guide?
It would be hard to do a day trip from Paris to Normandy without a guide. As Phil notes, public transportation to the sites is not good to non-existent. So, you would need a car. By the time you took the train from Paris, picked up a car, and figured out how to get to places, your time to see sites would be limited. Meeting a guide at the train station allows you to be much more efficient in using your time to see sites.
Posted by
Cleveland
1025 posts
I believe Dave from Lexington shared some good thoughts on the tradeoffs. With my wife’s family, we arranged a 1 day private tour run by Overlord tours that met us at the train station with two mini-vans (we had over a dozen folks of all age ranges), and they gave an excellent but fast tour and returned us to the train station. It was not cheap— but worth every penny.
My wife’s father was a WW II naval officer who served in both Europe and Asia and her brother was a recently retired full Colonel in the Kentucky engineering reserves. And they had a cousin who actually died on Omaha beach. My brother-in-law left a medal his grave. We all wished had more time, wished we had another day but as I said there are always trade offs when you travel. One of my wives sister stayed in Normandy for another day — but she missed the louvre with us. Anyway, more than 1 day is best, getting a guide is best, but sometimes that doesn’t work out. Seeing it anyway you can will still be precious. Good luck!
Happy travels.
Posted by
OP
40 posts
Thank you everyone! Looks like I will have to just pay more and fo the private tour, i dont want to go all the way to France and not see it.
Posted by
Wyckoff, NJ, USA
8770 posts
We spent three nights in Bayeux, and drove ourselves to D-Day sites on two days. Parking took time to find an empty space at some places. Planning our stops took a lot of reading, three paperbacks total. Some of our walking was on grass, and a little on sand. Better organization would have made time for more stops.
Yes, these tours are expensive, because they take a lot of guide time, and vast amounts of preparation time (... like school teachers ... for example...), and preparation of binders of supporting material. There is very high demand for the product, and that drives up prices as well. They have to be paid in advance and they sell out. We observed that the guides tend to have a drill-sergeant affect that we didn't care for, but no poster here has written regrets about their tour.
Your mother's physical abilities suggest that you need a private guided tour. There's no way to sugar-coat that. Are you aware of the distance from Paris? Here's an example of the vast amount you can find in the Search Box top left: