Utah Beach, St. Mere Eglise, Pointe Du Hoc, Honfluer

The next morning we headed for Utah Beach, north of where we had been at the American Cemetery.  It was quite a contrast to the solemn feeling of Omaha Beach.  While the Cemetery was maintained by the U.S., Utah Beach was a commercial enterprise.  We either missed the parking lot or there was none.  The exhibition was filled with photos and stories and even a plane and tank from the war.  This was the only place, also, that gave much of an accounting of the German side.  We were glad to be inside; the weather was terrible.

At this point we decided to go to St. Mere Eglise for lunch, right inland from Utah Beach and the place where one particular paratrooper got caught on the church steeple and hung there for a couple of hours until he was captured by the Germans.  Why he was not just shot was not clear, but the Germans were overrun soon after by the invading Americans so everything turned out well.  They actually have an effigy of the soldier that still hangs from the church.

As we got to the town, the sun came out and I got this picture.  The weather here has been weird for the last few weeks.  It changes from minute to minute, let alone hour to hour but reliably rains every day.

The town is quite nice with a lot of timber framed houses.....

And these trees that are macabre in the winter but I'm sure will look very nice when they start to bloom.

The church is beautiful inside.

As most of these town churches are.

From here we drove to Pointe du Hoc, pronounced by Geert, our American Cemetery guide as "pointy hook".  It's the place where soldiers and sailors had to scale the cliffs to take out an installation of German guns on D-Day.

It is much more raw than other other D-Day sites.  You walk out on the point and dodge the many huge craters caused by the bombs that tried to destroy the German guns before the Americans arrived.

There  are also remnants of German guns and bunkers.

Looking out at the English Channel you can see how difficult it must have been to scale the cliffs.

Out at sea was a tourist ship that just stayed in the same place while we were there.

We had taken one car here so we drove back to Bayeux to pick up my car and I had a ticket!  I could not figure out why and figured it must be because I had a U.S. license plate.  After a few days I found out that I was supposed to put a "disc" on the car meaning either I was to pay or park there only for a set time.  I still don't know for sure.  Anyway, it cost me 17 euros.

At this point we decided to drive north to Honfleur, one of the most beautiful cities in France.  We had a reservation at the L'Ecrin Hotel, which looked like an old mansion on the outside.  The inside was unbelievable.  Here's the reception room.

And the parlor.

And the hallway.

I walked around to the back and saw this...

This was the hotel's "internet cafe."

And the hotel also had a swimming pool, though it was way too cold and rainy for that.

My bedroom was in another building, but it was still quirky.  Here's the bathroom.

I arrived in the city before Mary and Chuck so I took a walk to the main part of Honfluer.  Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of how lovely it is.

We had dinner by the water, where Mary managed to totally charm the waiter with her French. So tomorrow, more of Honfluer and then it's on to Rouen, where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.