We will be spending 4 nights in Paris and then Renting a car. We have a room booked in Granville July 5, unfortunately we only have one day in the area. We would like to see the Normandy Beaches. Can someone recommend a tour book? I would like to take a self tour of the area, some advice on the best time to leave Paris and any advice on avoiding the tour bus crowds would also be helpful.
Thanks in advance,
Looking forward to visiting your beautiful country,
Brian and family
Brian,
I'm not sure what you're referring to as a "tour book"? With a car you can certainly drive to the beaches or other sights and look at them, but you won't get much of a sense of the events that occurred there. Taking one of the excellent local tours (even a half day tour) would provide a more rewarding and interesting tour experience.
The best time to leave Pars is "early", so that you can have as much time as possible in Normandy. Tour bus crowds will be thicker in the afternoons, which is when you'll be there so I don't think there's any way to avoid them.
For driving in France, having an International Driver's Permit is a really good idea.
Bon Voyage!
I would second Jeff's opinions. We just recently did a driving self guided tour of the Normandy landing D-Day beaches with my family and thoroughly enjoyed it. Major and Mrs Holt's is an excellent resource although you won't get to see half of it :) We knew we only had one day so we had to edit to what we most wanted to see. We started at the Utah Beach Museum, which according to RS is the best museum along the beaches, and we thought it was excellent. We then drove to Pont du Hoc (again amazing) and then the US Cemetery. You can no longer go down to Omaha beach from the US Cemetery, so after our time there we backtracked a little and drove along the shore line and walked on Omaha. After that we backtracked a little further and went to the German Cemetery which was an incredibly thought provoking experience and I would recommend it to anyone. All of this took us 8 hours from 9:30 am, when the Utah Beach Museum opened until 5:30 when we stopped for dinner. You can absolutely see more in that time frame that we did, but we preferred to spend a couple of hours at each place rather than rushing around and not really appreciating what we were seeing and where we were. Have a great time at an unforgettable place.
I also recommend Major and Mrs. Holt's book. My husband reviewed it before leaving so we could identify what we wanted to see and what was doable in 1.5 days. We stopped at a couple "unknown" places as a result. Everything is amazing, but we both were very moved by the German cemetery -- could be because we were the only ones there, or that it was shortly after D-Day last year and there were still wreaths and floral arrangements there, and that it was pouring rain when we visited the American cemetery. Whatever the reason, it's worth a visit.
Thanks for all the helpful replies.
Brian
