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So today was a day I had been pretty excited about for a while. Going on a tour of the D-Day beaches out in Normandy. For whatever reason I have kind of turned into a bit of a history buff/nerd on this subject and wanted to go out to the area to check it out and pay my respects at the American cemetary to all the soldiers we lost that day. Unfortunately it's a two hour train ride out to the town of Bayeux where the tour starts but it's a pretty nice ride. The countryside out in Normandy is beautiful and the architectural style reminds you of rural Britain for the obvious geographical reasons. I wish I could spend more than just an afternoon out here exploring some of the small towns. The tour consisted of a group of 7 Americans and 1 Australian in a van driven by our tour guide from a nearby town. I'm just going to give a quick break down of the places we stopped on our tour:

-Went to a town on a seaside whose name I forget where one of the artificially constructed ports was built to transfer equipment from Britain to the continent. Some of the remains are still out at sea. Also have a museum there that we stopped at briefly
-Stopped at a hill overlooking the sea with some well preserved German artillery (150 mm) that were used to fire at the troops down on Sword Beach (British)
-Point du Hoc which is a point that overlooks the bluffs on both Omaha and Utah beach and was the sight of an especially daring U.S. Rangers mission
-Went to Omaha Beach (Bloody Omaha) which was the scene of some of the most intense fighting. It's weird since Omaha Beach is now exactly that, a beach. And a popular one at that. The beach is full of people out having a good time in the same place where thousands of people died at war. It's kind of surreal but really it makes complete sense ha.
-And the big one, we stopped by the American Cemetery which is fantastically done. It's just so peaceful out there and very well taken care. It's just white cross after white cross as far as the eye can see. Almost 4,000 American soldiers are buried here, thousands of miles from home. Pretty emotional experience. Oh and I was quite excited to see some Jewish stars mixed in with the crosses, many with stones put on them which was nice to see. Hopefully their graves are still being visited from those back home.

Anyways, I am really glad I did this tour as it was exactly what I hoped it would be. It was also nice to see how much the people nearby seemed to care about what happened that day. Everywhere you go there are monuments and American flags and none of it seems like it is done to lure in tourists. It's pretty neat. Can really sense how important the events of that day when you are here. That pretty much sums up the day. Ordered some room service for dinner back at the hotel and had a quiet night.

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