The drive to Bayeux was uneventful. Our credit card worked at all tolls although we always had euros just in case. We arrived in Bayeux and was greeted warmly by Florence at the Sainte Croix B&B. This was a great value for a family of 4, with an amazing breakfast and it felt and looked like what you would want a French home to be. The rooms and bathroom are huge, but just a heads up for parents; it is not child proofed. There are ceramic cats lining the stairs to go to your room and there are vases with flowers everywhere. It is beautiful and my boys enjoyed it because to them it seemed “French” but it like going to an older grandparents’ house where everything is very beautiful, but you don’t want them to touch anything. Again my boys were totally fine with this, but it is different than many places you would stay in that respect.
That afternoon we viewed the Bayeux Tapestry which is impressive, and even better they have a special audio guide for kids that goes at the same pace as the adult one. We then toured the Cathedral and having the RS guide to this place was invaluable. The crypt in particular was a favorite of our family. We then had dinner in sight of the cathedral and I had some amazing steak tartar and cidre. Which became my drink of choice in Normandy for all of my meals.
The nest day we did our own driving tour of the Normandy D-Day Beaches. This was the highlight of the entire trip for my 10-year-old. He read several books before we left and we had 70-degree weather and blue skies and sun the entire day. 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 went walking along this beach while the tide was out. That was perhaps the most evocative experience of the entire day. We truly got to feel what 500 yards looked like and how scary and hard taking that ground was. We stopped for lunch at Creperie Montoise on the roundabout in the center Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. My husband’s moulles frites were amazing as were the galets. Sitting outside across from the church that held the first Mass after D-Day was awesome. 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 drove back to Bayeux for dinner.
All I can say is that we fell in love with Normandy and Bayeux with this short visit. My husband, who was more looking forward to visiting Iceland and the Netherlands than France, ended up loving France the most. He even said we should come back on another vacation and that he felt the most comfortable in France. This was a BIG admission for him to make and made me happy because it meant that our travels were genuinely changing our perceptions about the places we visited.
Up the next day was driving and a little of the Battle of the Somme...