July 16, 2017

July 16, 2017

Last night was low tide on the Normandy coast, so Aimee and I walked far out onto the Arromanches beach to get a closer look at the remaining concrete pieces of the D-Day temporary harbor. Having visited the local museum yesterday, we now know what we are looking at.

I also noticed firework mortar tubes setup on the beach. I excitedly tell Aimee we didn’t miss the Bastille Day festivities after all. We have a nice dinner on D-Day Plaza. This time I ordered a traditional French meal of Sole Meuniere with a starter of Foie Gras. Delicious. After dinner we rested up and then came out later to hear a rock band play for a couple hours. At exactly 11 pm, the band stopped, we turned around and the fireworks started on the beach below accompanied to music. For a small town it was great display.

This morning we checked out and headed east. We made a drive-by stop at one last D-Day site. Aimee groaned when I told her it was just a bridge that starred in The Longest Day. Aimee and I were both shocked to find the relatively modern drawbridge nicknamed Pegasus mobbed with tourists. On the eve of D-Day, British glider troops landed here to take this vital crossing. We got in the spirit of the event by having coffee at a little cafe next door. Its claim to fame is being the first house liberated in France. Unfortunately this bridge is a modern replacement. The original is now next door in a museum.



We finish our drive in Honfleur. We check into our cute hotel and walk downhill to the old town. Honfleur is an old Viking port town at the mouth of the Seine. Since the locals were shipwrights, the Church is all wooden with a ceiling that looks suspiciously like an inverted ship. The Old Port is a little square of water now filled completely with modern watercraft and lined with restaurants. We had a nice lunch at a water-side cafe and then worked it off with a jetty walk to the mouth of the Seine River. There we get a good view of the industrial port of Le Havre and Normandy Bridge, maybe the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world. We then finished with some window shopping.

After resting back in our hotel room, we hiked the short Cote de Grace trail to the top of the cliff for a bird’s eye view of the Honfleur harbor. We then walked back downhill for a harbor-side wine and dessert dinner and a big dose of people watching.