Blogs from Lower Normandy, France, Europe - page 8

On June 6, 1944, the largest amphibious invasion of all time landed on the Normandy coast. The landings, codenamed Operation Neptune (as part of the larger operation to liberate France known as Operation Overlord), involved some 7000 ships, landed some 150,000 men (roughly half American and half from Commonwealth countries) with their immediate supplies, and included air cover by thousands of Allied fighters and bombers plus the transport aircraft that carried the paratroopers (the invasion was immediately preceded by the drop of the British 6th Airborne Division and the American 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions). By the end of the day, the Germans had suffered about 1000 casualties, while the Allies had suffered about 10,000 casualties, 4, 414 confirmed dead. The only woman to land on D-Day was Martha Gellhorn, a celebrated war journalist and at ... read more

frost overnight and the day looks like being another sunny one. Today’s plan for sightseeing is to head in the opposite direction of yesterday to Barfleur and then down the coast to Utah Beach, one of the landing beaches in the D-Day invasion of 6th June 1944,and indulge in some history of WW2. With another hearty breakfast consumed we headed out to find the D902 towards Barfleur. We had mentioned the narrow country lane the Pony Club is situated on and our luck so far has not to meet any opposing vehicles on it. That luck ran out today but I skilfully negotiated Peggy as far as I could to the right and the other driver coming our way did the same and we edged past each other successfully. We should add that we were advantaged ... read more

Our usual quota of sleep is around 7 hours and so we were pretty well on the button when we both woke just after 3am ready to start the day.....except it was still very dark outside. Thankfully we both managed to get back to sleep eventually and hopefully tonight our body clocks will give us our usual quota although we won’t venture off to bed so early. Being in the far west of the time zone the light in the eastern sky took longer than we anticipated bringing about daylight and allowing us to observe our surroundings. Our accommodation is not quite like what we expected although when we consider the name of ‘Parc Residence’ we should have realised that this place is really long term apartments occupied by people that work in the area somewhere ... read more

I was reluctant to have kids: they are for life! I mean, the responsibility of looking after someone for the rest of my life was a bit overwhelming, as even when they leave home to start their own lives you still worry about them. However, as I grew older this changed and we decided, after all, to have kids BUT we were sure this will not change our lifestyle and we will continue traveling and doing the things we like. Has this happened?, well, not quite. Let me explain myself: When Dax and I met we were both very outgoing and liked being with people and doing things: we met friends in the pub or for a Sunday roast, we traveled by van to different parts of the UK, we got married in the Cook Islands ... read more

Normandy D Day sites I was not going to write about these. But after visiting the US war cemetery at Colleyville sur Mer I want to make a mention of that cemetery and memorial. There are many war cemeteries in this area – there was a big invasion here on 6th June 1944 and is was the start of the end of German occupation of France. Australia had our own theatre of war at the time so we had little involvement. So we did not view these sites with the same interest as we gazed on WWI sites. But we chose to visit this US cemetery as it is so big – with over 9,000 buried there. What is so notable is the memorial display. There is a museum with a number of short film clips ... read more