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Landing Site tours from Caen

I'm trying to work out how I can book a tour for my kids and I, which includes Juno beach, from Caen, for a day or a half day. We are interested in seeing other landing sites as well, but Juno is a must. It also seems to be the road less travelled. I've been told most tours leave from Bayeux but it doesn't make any sense to travel from Caen to Bayeux and backtrack to Juno Beach.

Any ideas or tour guide recommendations that work out of Caen? We only have a single entire day to see what we want to see on the coast. Then we move on to Rouen.

Posted by
1137 posts

Can't help you with a tour, but Juno Beach is slightly closer to Bayeux than to Caen (less than a half-hour), and the Canadian Cemetery is close as well. That and Bayeux is just a much nicer town to visit—particularly if you are interested in history.

Posted by
24 posts

It would be nice to see Bayeux and I was looking forward to it but we have limited time and just can't see everything so Bayeux is currently not on the itinerary

Posted by
4861 posts

If your primary interest is the Canadian sector of the Normandy landing sites, I suggest looking at the links provided by the Juno Beach Centre. There may be a private operator willing to pick you up in Caen.
https://www.junobeach.org/plan-your-visit/links/

However the previous posters are correct in that Caen is not a handy place to stay for DDay excursions. We had a car and stayed in Courseulles sur Mer, in the heart of the Canadian sector. Lots of car rental options near the train station in Caen.

Posted by
27120 posts

Check to see whether Overlord Tours offers something focused on Canadian sites. I know it has several options for one-day tours. They depart from the center of Bayeux.

A half-day tour wouldn't allow you to see much, because so much of that time would be spent driving between Bayeux and the invasion sites.

Posted by
27120 posts

I've now had a chance to check the OverlordTours website and can confirm that the company offers a full-day British-and-Canadian sector tour that includes Juno beach: Overlord Tour No. 4

I don't know whether that tour runs daily; I'd email and ask if you think the tour might suit you. I'd also ask whether the company recommends participants take a packed lunch with them. On the tour I took of American sites, the lunch break was at St-Mere-Eglise, which is also the location of the Airborne Museum. Anyone who went to a restaurant for lunch probably had to forego the museum.

Posted by
86 posts

We took Overlord tour #4 in 2015 and it was really great. We saw some amazing sites. We lunched at Arromanches and had time to explore a bit. Really enjoyed it!