Nicole Bienvenue La France: National Lampoon's Family Vacation

Day 5: Normandy

Point du Hoc

Now, we were off to the Normandy beaches. We started at Point du Hoc, the point where you can look left and see Utah Beach and look right and see Omaha Beach. It was pretty neat to be standing there thinking about how all of those soldiers climbed the cliffs so many years ago. There were tons of craters in the earth from all the bombs that were dropped. It was quite a unique experience. We moved down along the coast to Omaha Beach which is, in fact, the longest beach I have ever seen. There was a war memorial set up on the beach. Next, we headed to the cemetery, which was the most well-kept piece of land in all of France. It was immaculate. The thousands of white crosses and stars of David, set up in a perfectly constructed grid, had quite an eerie feel to it, but it was beautiful. If anyone finds themselves in Normandy, I would highly recommending going there. It is just something you just need to experience. After our history lesson, we headed to Caen to drop off our luggage at the hotel and then continue onto Honfleur. Honfleur was a very picturesque village on the water. There were lots of people out and about in the town. It was definitely the liveliest town we stopped in. Todd and I also got ice cream which was pretty good and we came across a little chocolaterie (a chocolate store) and bought some amazingly good chocolate. We had the most amazing shrimp, mussels, and apple tart for dinner and then headed back to our hotel. There were tons of fireworks going off seeing as it was Bastille Day in France, but by the time we realized they were going on, we were too late.