Before I came on this tour, I thought it would be a trip that could only be appreciated from a man’s perspective.
Although there are lots of men visiting the battle sites of Normandy, there are also many couples and of course schoolchildren in their hundreds. Because of the great interest shown by the Americans and British visitors, the most important sites have been made very user friendly and interesting for both men as well as women. The museums have movies that recreate the battle scenes so that you feel like you were actually there. One especially good movie that I enjoyed is the 360° cinema at Arromanches where you feel like you are flying, sailing or driving through the area in 1944 and then again as it is now. I could compare what it felt like to the soldier and what it looks like now.
The tour through the underground German bunkers at Azzerville enabled me to see the war from the German perspective. The sound and light show in a bunker at the Merville Battery helped me feel what it was like to live through the noise of the bombing and shelling [louder than Dennis playing Private Ryan on his sound system!]. All these tourist-directed sites made it very interesting for me and not just a tour through dry museums and cemeteries. The stories of heroism by the soldiers, resistance fighters and local residents make for spell-binding listening.
The beautiful countryside that is very green at the moment with idyllic pastoral scenes of cows and sheep and the lovely little villages with their rose gardens belie the images of destruction that I saw on old photographs and movies.
The American and British tourists are welcomed everywhere with signs of welcome to ‘the Liberators’ despite the way their homes were completely destroyed. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor Frenchmen who had to endure so much. The number of graves in the cemeteries, both Allies and German, are heart wrenching as it made me realize the number of soldiers who died and all in the 19 and 20 age groups –so young!
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