Weekend Trips Around Europe: Normandy, France

Since I wanted to brush up on my World War II knowledge and also visit Mont St. Michel, I figured that it was time to visit Normandy.

Normandy is along the coast of France, situated south of the English Channel so it is very accessible from Paris.

Quick Tips:

Plan your day before you start going from site to site.

If you’re here for a day or less, the best plan of action would be coordinate your day because you may not have enough time to see or do everything you want to. I visited Normady twice. The first visit was with a group so everything was pre-arranged and the second time was with a few friends (we visited the WWII memorials)

If you don't have a planned schedule then make sure you have a way to get to and from wherever you plan on going. Besides taxis, public transportation was hard to come by to visit places like the American Cemetery and Omaha Beach.

Best Way To Get Around:

IF YOU PLAN TO VISIT MONT ST. MICHEL
Driving would be your best bet. The site has parking and it costs €4 for the whole day. From Paris it should take you about 5 hours.

A bus is a second option. I had a private bus since we were on a tour but anyone can take a bus from Rennes to get there. The bus cost about €11.


IF YOU PLAN TO VISIT THE WWII SITES:
There are several cabs that offer competitive prices to drive you around all the places tourist often want to visit and they offer different prices dependent on where you want to go.

So the best bet would be to hire one of the taxis to drop you off and pick you up from location to location. I visited Omaha Beach Pointe du Hoc and the American Cemetery. The fare was about Euros. The drivers are usually very friendly and they know a lot about the history as well so feel free to ask them questions.

I had originally wanted to bring my bicycle for this trip but since I had to travel from Nantes on the train there were virtually no options to take your bike with on the trains that went there.

If you ever stop to visit Mont St. Michel be sure to eat at “La Mere Poulard.

I was getting pretty hungry by the time I had gotten off the bus. We rode from Rennes but I fell asleep so I really don’t remember how long it took. We stopped an ate at “La Mere Poulard”. People told me to stop and eat there if I got the chance so I decided to try it.

I was pretty convenience since it was the 1st restaurant I saw when I walked by the entrance. We got there early so there wasn’t a big crowd. I got an omelette with bacon, 2 types of cheese, peppers and it was pretty good. My entire meal cost about 18 euros which I think is a little high but I do have to consider that this is a tourist area.

This was the second restaurant that we ate at during our trip at Mont St. Michel. It was a lot more expensive than the previous place (La mere poulard) but this place was also quite nice.

Seafood was the specialty here so I had some shrimp and scallop. It was great, everything tasted perfect. From my perspective I didn't think giving a tip was necessary since the food here was so expensive as it was but you do have a server that brings the menus, take your orders and bring your food.

There is also a hotel on the upperfloors by the same name that is not too expensive (67 euros/night in high season for a two-person room). The staff is friendly. The windows looked out on the busy and colorful main street; others look out on the bay. One tip: if possible, try to arrive at and depart from the hotel via the ramparts and not the main street. The main street is so full of people that it's difficult to get through alone, let alone with a suitcase.

You can explore the Mount only at certain hours, as the car parks get covered by the sea depending on the tide, making the Mount become an island. So be careful to leave the Mount by the time written at the bottom, or leave your car in a safe place if you plan to sleep on the Mount! Many tourists stay overnight in a hotel on the Mount so that they can experience the Mount being surrounded by water in the early hours of the morning. It's a wonderful experience!
At the bottom of the Mont Saint Michel are a few restaurants, among them the world-renowned "Mere Poulard", famous for her nice omelettes. You can also find a few souvenir shops. But the nicest places to explore are all the old little streets leading to the top of the Mount; that is to say, the roads up to the big monastery, where you can still find some nuns and monks and from where you have a wonderful view over the countryside, sand dunes, and beaches. You can visit the monastery--sometimes they do a free entry (which I didn't get the chance to find when last I went there!). This is a really great experience to do with the whole family, the Mont Saint Michel is a really impressive place to visit.

OMAHA BEACH
If you’re very fond of war movies and watched “Saving Private Ryan” or played “Call of Duty 2” then you definitely know about the battle that happened on this beach. The Allied forces invaded Normandy on June 6 1944, a day referred to as D-Day.

I was standing by the water, trying to picture myself as a German soldier and seeing thousands of troops invading you from the sea. From here you can still see some of the turrets, canons that the Germans used during that battle. Some were very well hidden inside hills and were hard to pin point.

POINTE DU HOC
This was a pretty cool hill. From here you could actually see Omaha Beach and Utah Beach below. During the war, the US soldiers use this base as a point of attack since the Germans were able to use this site to bomb soldiers that were coming from beaches.

It was a high climb but once I got to the top, it was all worth it. First thing I noticed were the German gun posts that were still somewhat intact. These soldiers would apparently crouch under their post to hide their position from airborne attacks and shoot at Allied soldiers from afar.

AMERICAN CEMETERY
This cemetery is actually directly above Omaha Beach so instead of riding in the taxi, I decided to walk there and enjoy the sites.

The American Cemetery at Colleville-Sur-Mer was surreal. Before this trip I can admit that I was very uneducated about the specifics that actually took place in Normandy during this war but when I started to see the endless rows of cross or statue of David (for Jewish American Soldiers) + the names of all those that didn’t make it back home… There was a wall with over 10,000 names on it of soldiers that either died or not accounted for after the battle. It filled me with sorrow at first but that quickly turned into admiration and complete respect for all those that went to serve there country in times of war and unrest. I probably spent a good hour just walking around and reading the names of those that had fallen. I think every American should visit this place one day if they could because it makes all the other troubles in life seem so trivia and there is some feeling of peace & tranquility when you walk through this place.