Today was a good day. We started off with a light breakfast from our B&B, and then set off for the Paratrooper museum down the street. It was trying to rain, but never got much further than mist, which seems to be normal in France.
The Paratrooper museum was pretty cool. In addition to the standard tanks and anti-air guns, they had a collection of rarer
After we saw the museum (and the art gallery) we walked out into the back field they let reenactors use. We saw their motorcycle/halftrack combo, their jeeps, and over by their tents they had a table with guns laid out. Which means we got the chance to handle all of their guns, including a Thompson, a Garand, and a colt pistol - the real-steel version of the airsoft pistol Ethan nearly bought the week before. While we were hefting and working the mechanisms on the guns, one of the reenactors started doing laps on the half-track-bike, and was joined by another in the jeep. It was great.
After we finished at the museum we picked up lunch at yesterdays bakery, and then wandered around town looking at tourist information / antique shops. In one of the stores they even had butterfly knives that weren't the ubiquitous terrible ones! I spent a month unsuccessfully searching the black markets of Peru and Bolivia... it turns out I'd gone to the wrong content. The price was right and my French was sufficient (ex: "Monsieur, the knife?"), so now I have two things to keep me out of museums.
Thus we finished in St-Mer-Eglise, and set off to Utah beach, the other American invasion Beach on D-Day. Utah beach is basically a museum on the beach, with the only other evidence of the invasion being streets named after soldiers lost securing the beachhead. During D-day, tides and currents conspired to bring American troops in a mile off-target. Finding much weaker resistance than expected, they quickly brought in all their troops with a minimum (~200) of casualties. We had lunch overlooking the beach, wandered around (literally around) the museum admiring their bomber, and then stepped inside to use their bathroom. In addition to the bomber, they also have a very cool mobile bomb, sort of a remote-control tank half the size of your bed, filled with high-explosive. The films of it in deployment were (fear) inspiring.
[click though for ultra-high-res panorama]
Utah conquered, we set off to Pointe-du-Hoc, taking some fun back roads that made me glad we brought the GPS, if only so that I could watch my mother's face when it sent us down probably-correct shortcuts. Point-du-hoc is great. Imagine a field of concrete caves set on a grass-covered moonscape, festooned with barb-wire. That's exactly what it was. Five German 155mm artillery guns that covered both Omaha and Utah beaches were shelled by battleships into submission... except instead of destroying the guns they put 20' craters on every side of them and scared the Germans into pulling their guns back into the treeline. Then, on D-Day, 255 rangers scaled the 100' cliff under gunfire and grenades to attack the bunkers. After finding the bunkers empty they snuck into the woods, came across the artillery, and destroyed it in stealth. Their task accomplished, they radioed in for reinforcements, but they had taken so long they were presumed dead, and their reinforcements had already been sent to Omaha beach. They were forced to withstand two days of counterattacks... losing half their men. By the time they were relieved there were only 90 left fit to fight. Us boys, on the other hand, spend our day stepping over barbwire and groping blindly through pitch-black bunkers. Ethan recognized the bunker on the tip - the one initially assaulted - from Call of Duty. I got myself muddy in one ill-advised bunker and stung by nettles taking a picture of another. Like I said, it was a good day.
Back in the car and in cleaner pants we went back to Omaha beach, with the goal of actually going down to the beach this time. And we did! We found a place we could park nearer the coast and walked across the large (low tide) expanse to the water. On the way back we climbed upon the mulberry that had washed ashore, relieving dad's regret at having skipped doing so at Arromanches. The D-Day beaches completed, it was time for us to step further back in history. I slept my way there.
We checked into our next hotel and drove out to Mont St Michel, arriving as everyone else was leaving. MSM is a town on a small rocky island topped by a 1000-year-old monastery. Awesome, no? It looks like what Disney World is trying to be, and made our 400 year-old hotel seem downright modern. We wandered around the tidal mud, checking out a small chapel, before being called back by a security guard in a comically small red hat. The tide was coming in sooner than we expected. In fact, as he whistled I could see a 4" wave traveling back up the bay at the pace of a brisk walk. Dad double-checked our parking place (and it's above-sea-level-status) with the security guard and we went up the back gate. Mom really really wanted to see the tide come in so we briskly walked up-up-up the Mountain and halfway back down the other side to the ramparts. It was worth it to watch the mud-flats disappear. (As seen in the animated picture - click!) You could pick out specific "islands" and watch as they flooded, visibly shrinking before your eyes. Then the islets were gone and the rain was back, so we went off to find dinner.
We ordered Ham omelets (the traditional pilgrims-meal for the past half-millenia), a fancy salad, and a crepe for dessert. While we waited for our food (which was a while, we were on french time) dad told us that when he was here with mom the waiter misunderstood him and brought food different than what he ordered. Then they brought us food different from our order. Salmon, instead of Jambon. It was still good, as was dessert. The only ungood part was outside, where it was still raining. We set off to tour the abbey and cathedral regardless. It was sweet. The rain and the evening hour gave everything a gloomy look, and the lighting on it all teetered between clever and awe-inspiring. One of the first rooms was lit only by candles ringing the columns and light tinting its way in through the stained glass. We wove through the cathedral, slowly working our way up and consistently in awe of how cool the building(s?) is(were?). One room had a 20 foot hamster wheel in which three pairs of prisoners took turns cranking supplies up a 80° elevator. Another support pillars for the tower, each fifteen feet across (rebuilt after a collapse with the "No kill like overkill" rule). Others held twin fireplaces tall enough to stand in, and wide enough to sleep Goliath. The castle-complex is so sprawling and intricate that it would take me a week to learn the layout and I'd probably overlook entire rooms. That said, it's a challenge I'd love to take.
Finally, we made our way through a cramped winding stairway and came out in the cathedral itself, a stunning cross-shaped building with vaulted ceilings five stories higher (maybe more), towering above an already-vertical city. My favorite part was the balcony in front of the cathedral. As large as most parking-lots, the balcony offered great views of the tower, the cloister, and the water surrounding the island. Above everything as it was, including the switchbacks of the road below, it felt like Tolkien's castle of Minas Tirith in Gondor, an illusion heightened by the harpist playing inside and the storm playing outside. It The next room was a cloister, a courtyard surrounded by a twin-row of magnificently lit arches offering another view of the spires stabbing upward into the fog. Then a dining room and an endless spiral staircase finished the tour, and we made our way down the narrow cobblestone streets, through another chapel, across the drawbridge, and into the clouded night.
The first image and the animation were shot by me. All of the other photos were taken by Ethan. The photos at Mont-St-Michelle except the last were directed by me. Between his skills and my eye for what's photogenic we're great.
Bonus Story: Our hotel was the mansion of a noble who accidentally killed the king in a jousting match. Our receptionist only said one thing in English: "It rains twice a week in Normandy. The first time last three days and the second for four." Two hours later in the car my mother goes "OOOOOOh. Got it."
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