Memories of Normandy 10 years on
Images on TV of the commemoration ceremonies for the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landing inspired Linda Cassidy, an adventurous real estate broker in the Palm Beach, Florida area to send memories of a trip to Normandy ten years ago.
It may sound strange for two families from sunny Florida to head north and across the ocean to visit beaches, but that’s exactly and unforgettably what we did ten years ago this spring.
After four days in Paris, we hit the road. Three children, four adults, three Game Boys, too much luggage, liters of bottled water, lots of chocolate chip cookies, guidebooks, maps, an a rented van (exchanged at the rental agency for an impractical sporty car selected by the men) = Road Trip, French style. We knew we were headed for trouble when I was the designated linguist, but off we were for adventure in Normandy.
After driving from Paris to an overnight in Honfleur (where we had to tear our hubbies away from the cafes), we headed toward our ultimate objective of Landing Beaches.
We landed very French rooms at the Hotel Grand Luxembourg in Bayeux—ten years on my daughter, now 20, has fond memories of her blue toile room. Fortified with French McDonald’s we set off for the Bayeux Cathedral and Tapestry. Thinking about the latter reminds me that I still haven’t even started the needlepoint kit I bought in the tapestry gift shop. While buying it I spotted a woman wearing white tennis shoes, an accessory that immediately signaled an American and more specifically a fellow Floridian. Turns out she was chaperoning a tour group from a town near mine. So much for international encounters!
Then on to the Invasion of Normandy Museum in Bayeux, where we became totally engrossed (not just the guys) and emotionally wrenched (including the guys) reading letters from kids on both sides of the conflict made us all wipe our eyes.
The adults bought books (in addition to my needlepoint kit) and the kids bought crickets, those clickers used by the Allied Forces to communicate outside by code. The crickets may have been a big hit back in the classroom, but they had to be confiscated in the car as we drove through the countryside to the Landing Beaches.
Linda's daughter Catherine-Anne by a bunker at Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, 1999.
The American Cemetery, overlooking Omaha Beach, was our first D-Day stop. Empty—what a feeling to be there with graves sweeping away—a sea of white monuments, crosses and stars. It takes a beat to transfer them to boys that didn’t make it back to their homes. We realized we were seven beating hearts among all those prematurely stilled for Freedom. There were few visitors that day, which gave us time and space to feel a kinship and deep appreciation.
That afternoon we saw the beaches and bunkers. We lunched at Omaha in a lovely beach side café—which in itself seemed contradictory until we realized that this is why it all happened, so that we could worry about nothing more here than the resident cat biting a child’s finger (before curling up on its lap for the duration of the lunch) and so that the kids could play with their game players.
We signed the guest book and saw that the signatures right above ours were those of a couple who live about a mile from us in Florida.
Tags: Bayeux, D-Day, family travel, Landing Beaches, Normandy
