How many days to allow for beaches of Normandy

You will get many recommendations for Overlord tours. They are excellent, and offer private tours. But their standard tours are limited to 8 or so people - minivans as opposed to tour buses.

https://www.overlordtour.com/

I would allow for at least 2 full days for D-Day tours. We have been to Bayeux twice. On our first visit in 2010, we took a 2 day "American Experience" tour and a 1 day "Band of Brothers" tour with an outstanding company that is no longer in business. In 2019, we wanted to take a "Hedgerows" tour with Overlord, but nobody else signed up. So we took a 1 day tour that covered sites around Utah and Omaha Beach, and a 1 day "British and Canadian Experience" tour that was extremely interesting. As Americans, we hear a lot about the American landings at Normandy, so much of the information on the British and Canadian tour was new to us.

One family on our latest "American" tour had taken a cab to the American cemetery at Omaha Beach the day before just to visit the museum. You probably won't have time to visit the cemetery as well as the museum on a small-group tour.

Bayeux itself deserves a day - especially for the Tapestry.

If your time in Bayeux includes a Monday night, ask your hotel to make a dinner reservation for you ahead of time. Many of Bayeux's restaurants are closed on Monday.

This is who we used for a one day tour, and we were very pleased! We were actually kicking ourselves for only taking the one day tour instead of the 2 day tour though.

https://www.firstnormandybattlefieldtours.com/tour-guide

Definitely allow for a full day in Bayeux. We have also done a day trip to Mt Saint Michel through the Churchill Hotel which runs a shuttle there and back each day. If you can, also allow time inn Caen for the museum there. We felt that was a great first stop before the beaches etc.

Overlord is good and I'd also highly recommend Allan Bryson: https://www.firstnormandybattlefieldtours.com/
We took his one day minivan tour, and it was excellent.

I’ve been to Normandy, and Bayeux, more times than i can count. I love it there and can’t get enough. The ideal, imo, is a 1 or 2 day tour, then 1 or 2 days to go back to sites on your own by rental car b/c on a tour your time is short at each site. Then 1-2 full days in Bayeux, a charming town, to walk around, sit in a café, go to the outdoor market, visit the DDay Museum there (the best one imo) and see the Bayeux Tapestry. So, a minimum of 3 full days (4 nights) or ideally, at least 5 full days (6 nights). We stay a full week each visit.

I highly recommend staying at Hotel d’Argouges, a wonderful hotel in the heart of town.

Overlord has coaches as well as minivans -- I think there were about 12 on the bus tour we took with them -- It was excellent --I think it is the way to go to cover a lot of ground. So one day for the beaches -- you can do tours of the British/Canadian beaches or the American beaches

In October 2019 without a car, I visited Bayeux for 3 nights/2 full days because that’s all the time I had. You could certainly stay much longer to explore the WW2 and other sites in more depth.

Here’s how I spent my time:
Day 1: Bayeux Tapestry at opening time, spent 2 hours there including the museum upstairs. Quick visit, 1 hour, to Bayeux museum to see selected displays (folk history, lace). Lunch at Le Pommier. Train to Caen to visit the Caen Memorial Museum/Center for History and Peace (2-3 hours) and then supper back in Bayeux at Moulin de La Galette.

Day 2: I combined 2 half-day minivan tours of the D-Day beaches—British/Canadian beaches in morning, American beaches in afternoon. Walked along the riverside path back in Bayeux in the early eve followed by supper at L’Angle St Laurent.

I missed a lot during such a short visit but I also saw a lot and was glad I went. So I hope you can strike the balance you want for your visit.

I do remember that booking was essential for Bayeux restaurants at supper time. I either stopped by earlier in the day to book for that evening or I booked a day ahead. Lunch as a walk-in wasn’t a problem.

ETA: I used Bayeux Shuttle to tour the beaches. They were great but I’ve read of more recent problems so don’t necessarily take this as a recommendation to use them.

Normandy is an area that begs for having a car. There is almost no public transport, so other than an organized tour, you have no way to see sights without driving yourself there. And even if you do do a tour, you will want to go back to places you liked, or to which you had too little time to explore. Plus all the places the tour won't bring you (i.e., tons of places).

The question of "how many days to allow" is difficult to answer without more specific information on what you want to see. Are you interested mostly in the American beaches, Canadian / British beaches, Pegasus Bridge, Band of Brothers sites? One could spend a month exploring that area and still not see everything.

Using public transportation and taking tour(s) is an efficient way to see the main sights. I'd suggest planning a few hours to see the famous Bayeux Tapestry which details a much earlier battle. There's also an excellent WW-2 museum in Bayeux.

The town of Bayeux is a short distance from the rail station so you'll probably need a cab to get to your hotel. It may be necessary to pre-book a cab for the trip back to the station on departure.

As you prefer a private tour operator, you'll need to budget accordingly as that tends to be a bit pricey. A few you could consider......

• https://dboothnormandytours.com/
• http://www.visitdday.com/
• https://www.overlordtour.com/product-category/personalized-tours/

Whichever tour you choose, it would be prudent to book well in advance.

You might want to allow at least half a day just for exploring around Bayeux as it's a beautiful city.