Far less crowded than Versailles, far easier to organize than Champagne, far less tiresome than the D-Day Landing Zone, far less known of course, but an excellent choice of a day trip for the curious Paris revisitor—and with little to no planning required.

I’m talking about Rouen, a small city in Normandy that makes for an alluring, well-rounded walk-about, just 75-90-minutes by frequent, inexpensive train from Paris’ Saint Lazare Station.

By well-rounded I mean that Rouen offers the possibility to follow your nose, your interests and your appetite, all within a compact, walkable city center. Keep it leisurely, lilting and light, or go deep where you will. Will it be the Gothic cathedral whose façade inspired Monet? Will it be the history and the significance of Joan of Arc? Will it be the admirable fine arts museum or the handyman’s delight that is the wrought iron museum? Will it be the pastries, the ceramics shop, the half-timbered buildings, the 16th-century funerary complex, the 12th-century Jewish monument?

I wouldn’t dismiss Rouen for an overnight, or longer, but I had day trip in my mind when I chose Rouen for a city break on a mild midwinter weekday. You won’t—or shouldn’t try to—see it all in a single day, but there’s enough intriguing variety in the heart of this city of 116,000 to keep visitors of all ages, including solo travelers, engaged on a leisurely 10-12-hour excursion.

I did lots of backtracking through the day as I followed my nose and interests and appetite. And since I’d been to Rouen many times before, I didn’t look to (re)visit every sight and museum. So, while the footsteps of my day recounted below needn’t be yours, the variety of possibilities described here may well inspire your own well-rounded day trip Rouen.

Departing Paris

If you’re sure of your plans, go ahead and purchase your train ticket a few days in advance, otherwise you can likely decide the night before or even on a morning whim. Tickets are typically easy to come by since trains leave Paris’s Saint Lazare Station about every 30 minutes on weekday mornings, less frequently on weekends and holiday. Intent on making a full day of it, I took the 8:40am train, arriving in Rouen at 9:55am.

Rouen train station

On the right bank of the Seine River 85 miles from Paris, Rouen’s Rive-Droite train station is the first notable sight encountered on this day trip. Take a moment to admire it from within its great hall and from outside. Though inaugurated in 1928 during what is otherwise considered Art Deco period, the station’s pre-WWI design brought curves and arches associated with the late Art Nouveau period. Its architect, Adolphe Dervaux, designed the 1924 single-lamp streetlight that signals the entrance to many metro stations in Paris.

The Dungeon of Rouen Castle

It’s a straight 15-minute walk from the station to the historic heart of the city, down Rue Jeanne d’Arc, but I zigzagged my way there, beginning with a zig onto Rue du Donjon for a glimpse of the early-13th-century dungeon tower. The tower is the last remaining vestige of Rouen Castle. Joan of Arc was held prisoner in the castle for five months until her death sentence for heresy was carried out on May 30, 1431. As this day proceeds, you’ll be hearing more about la Pucelle, the Little Virgin, as Joan/Jeanne was called.

The Rouen Tourist Office

The Rouen Tourist Office currently occupies a niche at the corner of the Musée des Beaux Arts, the fine arts museum. Pick up a city map here and ask any planning questions to start you on your way. The museum had just opened for the day when I passed by, so that could have been my first stop, but I had breakfast in mind along with a desire to be out and about before taking in a museum on this day trip.

Maison Vatelier for morning pastries

Maison Vatelier won the title of Best Brioche in France in 1997 but isn’t resting on its laurels. The fluffy brick-size brioches certainly looked tempting, but too big for me on this solo excursion. I opted instead for a crescent shape to my buttery breakfast pastry, i.e. a croissant – an excellent one at that. Well, two actually since the kind saleswoman offered me the choice between one perfectly shaped crescent and, for the same price, two less shapely offerings. I chose the latter and saved the second for later. Given its imperfect shape, the croissant wasn’t Instagrammable, but as for taste, it was clear that Maison Vatelier knows how to work marvels with buttery morning fare! And the afternoon pastries certainly looked appetizing.

Aître St Maclou, unique funerary enclosure

It was common in the Middles Ages in France for a city to have an enclosure consisting of a common graveyard surrounded by funerary buildings and with an adjacent church. Just beyond the flamboyant radiating porch of Saint Maclou Church, Rouen’s aître or enclosed cemetery, was formerly a small parish cemetery, before being developed in the late Middle Ages into the large enclosure that can be visited today. The Black Plague, periodic famine and the Hundred Years’ War all contributed to the need for the expanded burial complex. Once the buried bodies of the defunct in one section had decomposed, the bones would be dug up and placed in the surrounding buildings called charnel houses. Though no longer used for burials or skeletal storage, Aître St Maclou is one of the few remaining former funerary enclosures of its kind in France.

The centuries-old spirit of the setting can be seen in the skulls, ditchdigger tools and dance macabre that decorate the wood beams and columns. The dance macabre, in which skeletons dance hand in hand with citizens of all walks of life, was a common decoration of such complexes, a reminder that our earthly party will one day end. But while we’re here… party on, especially during the Macabre Festival that’s held here for two weeks in late October/early November—that’s Halloween season for us. Goths take note.

Audio-guided and group tours of the site are available, but you can also visit on your own. Entrance to the courtyard is free. By the entrance, there’s an attractive café and restaurant named Hamlet https://www.cafe-hamlet.fr/ (“Alas, poor York…”).

One wing of the complex is occupied by the non-profit pottery workshop and ceramics shop, La Galerie des Arts du Feu www.galeriedesartsdufeu.fr. Looking for original gifts or decorative items for your own home? The shop presents attractive work from Norman artists. Some works in glass and metal are also presented here.

Musée des Beaux Arts de Rouen

Many cities throughout France have worthy fine arts museums, notable not only for their collections but for the beaux-art building themselves and the lack of crowds most days—certainly off-season. No Louvre lines here, particularly on weekdays. Entrance to Rouen’s Musée des Beaux-Arts is free, except for temporary exhibitions. (The museum is closed on Tuesday.)

Artists, students of art history and casual visitors alike will appreciate the elbow room with which to examine works, whether taking to the museum’s stately halls and rooms for 45 minutes or two hours. The casual visitor—me, for example—can take in a sweeping view of European art from the 15th century on, rushing by eras that speak less to you and slowing down in those that speak more, with the occasional eye-stopping, pondering pause along the way. For example, at the spooky-eyed scene called The Virgin among the Virgins by Gerard David (c. 1509); Diego Valasquez’s Democritus showing the viewer the boozy, ironic smile of a vagabond philosopher (c. 1630), or a wonderful self-portrait by Eugène Delacroix at about 18 (c. 1816).

Then there’s the museum’s impressive Impressionist and post-Impressionist collection thanks to the Seine Valley’s prominent place in the development of the art movement and to the donation of dozens of works by Francois Depeaux, a local industrialist and art collector of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The museum holds only one of Monet’s extraordinarily vibrant series of paintings of Rouen Cathedral. The one here, painted on a grey day, isn’t very pulsating on its own, yet it remains a centerpiece of the museum’s collection. More on that series when we get to the cathedral. Monet’s General View of Rouen is also in the permanent collection.

The current temporary exhibition at the museum, In the Rain: Painting, Living and Dreaming, focuses on the painting of rain and rainy scenes. Showing until September 20, 2026, entrance to the exhibition costs 12€, free for those under 18.

I was visiting the museum on an exceptionally calm day when it was possible to sit quietly in the museum’s atrium café and take part in the endearing scene of the image below. A fellow in the painting leaned out from the left to look wearily back—weary from drink, sun and a brother’s speech.

Lunch at In Situ

A leisurely day trip—along with the painting above—invites a leisurely lunch, even if a working lunch, as mine was when I met here with an official from the tourist office.

Across the street from the Beaux-Arts Museum, the brasserie In Situ looked rather ordinary from the outside, since no tables were out there during my January day trip. The spacious interior exuded no Old-World charm either, but we’d come to the right place for a tasty, congenial, inexpensive lunch. Owner-chef Laurent Blanchard is a passionate culinary raconteur of traditional bistro fare made personal. We tasted it on the plate and later heard it in his childhood memories of our main courses, a cassoulet and a shredded duck parmentier. And just look at his contagious smile here. We sensed that in each dish as well. Several doors down the wide alley, his wife Patricia prooses the simpler lunchtime and take-out dishes at In Fine. Both are closed on Sunday.

As noted earlier, I’m not asking you to follow in my precise footsteps on your day in Rouen. There are numerous appetizing and inviting lunch options in the city center. As to well-known restaurants, La Couronne, which dates itself to 1345 and claims to be the oldest existing inn in France, often appears on the list of American gastronomes. It was here that Julia Child experienced her culinary awakening regarding the pleasures of traditional, hearty French cuisine. L’Odas, by the cathedral, sports a Michelin star for those looking for a more prolonged and refined meal. Not to discourage anyone from a meal at either, but as much as I enjoy a leisurely lunch on a day trip, I’d rather not spend the afternoon over a meal—unless, of course, the meal is the purpose of the day trip. Numerous other pleasing options can be found in the city center without advance planning.

Musée Le Secq des Tournelles, the wrought iron museum

Wrought—the very word appeals to me for the way it fuses together notions of ornamentation, hammering, manufacturing and stirred emotions. Add iron to that and you get a wide array of decorative and practical objects at once heavy, intricate and refined. Gather together a collection of them (as a certain Le Secq and his son did in the 19th century) and place them in a Gothic former church, and you get the makings of one of my favorite sites in Rouen, a handyman’s delight, its wrought iron museum. Entrance is free. Open 2-6pm, closed Tuesday.

The Sublime House

“May this house be sublime…” That’s one of many Biblical, along with non-Biblical, inscriptions and graffiti in Hebrew on this exceptional and unique site, dated to around the year 1100.

After centuries of burial, it was rediscovered in 1976 during the final phase of restauration of the Palais de Justice (courthouse complex), when the complex’s courtyard was being prepared for repaving. A track shovel hit on something hard that turned out to be a mysterious building from the time that the level of the city in this area was about eight feet below today’s courtyard.

The area is known to have been the Jewish quarter prior to the expulsion of Jews from France in 1306, when Jewish property was confiscated. And the name of the street running alongside the courtyard is Rue aux Juifs or Jewish Street/Street of the Jews. Those were already indications that the discovered building had been Jewish-owned, but confirmation came only with the discovery during the excavation of the inscriptions in Hebrew.

Nearly all Jewish-owned buildings from the Middle Ages were destroyed in Europe as Jews were expelled from one kingdom and region after another, making this a unique archeological find. This is the oldest known building belonging to Jews in France and among the oldest in Western Europe. Jews were expelled from France by order of King Philippe le Bel in 1306. In 1307 the city purchased confiscated property from the king. The upper floors of the structure were then torn down in 15th or 16th centuries, at the latest in 1550, when the neighboring building of what was then Parliament of Normandy was extended, forming what is now the courthouse complex.

Evidence of a fire on one side of the Sublime House likely dates to 1116 when a fire tore through the Jewish neighborhood. That helped hone in on the date of construction to about 1100, a particularly rich period for Normandy, including for Norman Jews, following the conquest of England in 1066 by William, Duke of Normandy. The building was presumably in use for two centuries, until the expulsion of Jews from Rouen.

Hebrew inscriptions on its walls clearly indicate that this was a Jewish-owned building, but of what sort? A mystery remains as to the actual purpose of the Sublime House. One hypothesis is that it served as a yeshiva or Jewish institute of learning. Another, that it was a synagogue. And it may have been the home of a wealthy merchant, perhaps one who had made his fortune during the Norman Conquest, before bequeathing it to become a synagogue and/or a yeshiva.

Subsequent to the excavation of the Sublime House, other remnants of the neighborhood from the same era have been discovered nearby. A more detailed summary of the Sublime House can be read here.

I’d visited the Sublime House on a previous visit to Rouen, so I didn’t include it in my day trip this time. I’d had the honor of visiting with Jacques Tanguy, a historian specialized in Rouen who was present during the original excavation. Descending into the ruin requires advance planning since the site is generally only opened on Saturday for a up to 18 visitors for 1-hour guided tours at 10:30am and 2:30pm. Additional tours are possible on Tuesday and Thursdays at 2:30pm during French school vacations. The tour is in French only, though group visits in English may be possible upon request. For those who are interested in the site, it’s worthwhile descending beneath the courtyard and going inside the building even without understanding the full tour in French. See here for details about making a reservation.

Viewing the courthouse complex by walking around its perimeter is itself worthwhile. Evidence of the impacts of bombs from WWII can be seen as permanent scars on the building, particularly on the northwestern corner that faces Place Foch.

Notre-Dame Cathedral

Rouen’s Notre-Dame is not the country’s most beautiful, impressive or photogenic, yet Monet found it worth transcribing numerous times onto canvas in 1892 and 1893, and that is part of its claim to fame today.

See the website of the diocese of Rouen for a glimpse of 28 paintings Monet made of the façade, arranged by the time of day that each represents, along with much other information about the cathedral.

Monet, who spent most of his life in Normandy and whose brother lived in Rouen, would visit the town from his home in Giverny, 37 miles away. Here, he would set up his easel at several spots on the second floor of the buildings across the square. He would then finish his Rouen Cathedral paintings in his studio back home.

Viewing several of these paintings together, as at the Orsay Museum in Paris, is the best way to understand the connection between Monet’s eye, hand and palate. As noted earlier, only one of the series, painted on a grey day, is in Rouen’s Beaux-Arts Museum.

Yet today’s façade is not exactly as Monet saw it. Construction of the Gothic cathedral that more or less exists today was begun after a fire in 1200 destroyed an earlier edifice of the 10th and 11th century. The cathedral was subsequently scarred or ravaged at various times over the centuries, by civil unrest, lightning and war. The main damage that has intervened since Monet’s time is that of Allied bombing in the spring of 1944. Those bombing raids took place in preparation for the D-Day Landings. Looking to the right when facing the cathedral’s façade, you’ll notice post-war buildings. They reflect reconstruction of the section of the city along and near the river (just a few blocks away in that direction) that was irreparably damaged during those bombings, whose primary intent was to destroy docks and infrastructure in the area. The colorful array of half-timbered buildings in other parts of center city, particularly when walking behind the cathedral, attest to the fact the bombing was relatively focused along the river.

Joan of Arc – Historial Jeanne d’Arc

Born in northeastern France in 1412, Jeanne d’Arc / Joan of Arc accomplished and accompanied much during her brief time of living fame. Barely one year into her task of restoring France and its king to rightful power, she was captured, sold to the English, tried by the Church for heresy and burned at the stake in Rouen on May 30, 1431. Rehabilitated by the Church in 1456 (many of the players of her original trial were still alive), beatified in 1909, canonized in 1920, the Catholic Church places Joan, along the Teresa of Lisieux, just one rung below Mary in national patron sainthood.

Joan—la Pucelle or Little Virgin—is a major historical figure associated with Rouen and France as a whole. While admired by Catholics, her place in French history extends beyond her halo.

I’m a bit disturbed by this Joan of Arc business. The city that watched her burn, with toothless glee or awe or fascination, I imagine, now proudly uses her for promotional purposes. A visitor can dedicate a day to Joan alone. We can see where she was held prisoner, where she was judged, where she was burned, where her ashes were thrown into the river to prevent a cult from forming around them. Businesses and a candy bear her name.

Yet, it is a great story! I can understand spending a day learning it. Much about the gal is verifiable fact. And once you start learning about “the little virgin” and her brief appearance on the stage of France during the Hundred Years’ War with the English, you’re forced to wonder about how the stories—symbolic, actual, political, religious—of a single life persist in time when the stars align.

The Historial Jeanne d’Arc is an excellent place to start. It’s located just behind the cathedral in the episcopal palace that was the site of the trial that condemned her to be death as a heretic and the site of portions of the trial that rehabilitated her good name. Visitors walk through rooms viewing videos and holograms of various participants in the trials as they tell her story. The audio in your headset can be set to play in English. The Historial lays the foundation for understanding why Joan has gone down in French and Catholic history as the woman who victoriously led French troops against English invaders, gave courage to a diminished king, and was instrumental in turning the tide of the Hundred Years’ War—and, equally importantly, how her story has been used and reinterpreted for political purposes over the past two hundred years.

Time slots at the Historial can fill, particularly on weekends and in heavier tourist seasons, so you may wish to reserve in a day or two in advance. Or come by the morning of your day trip to reserve a slot for later in the day. Open 10am-7pm, closed Monday. A virtual visit of the site can be viewed here.

Rue du Gros Horloge – Big Clock Street

The commercial street leading from the cathedral to Place du Vieux Marché, site of Jean’s public execution, passes beneath the Grosse Horloge, the Big Clock. (The clock tower can be visited, with a panoramic view at the top.) Beyond it, chocolate specialist Auzou presents its sweet and crunchy creation of 1992 called the Larmes de Jeanne d’Arc, Jeanne of Arc’s tears. Auzou’s tears are grilled and caramelized almonds that have been given a thin ganache coating and finished with powdered chocolate. I bought some as a gift while saving my own appetite for afternoon sweetness for a pastry shop on the square.

Place du Vieux Marché – The Old Market Square

The charm of this market square was squandered in the 1970s with the construction of Saint Joan of Arc Church at its center. Then again, if you imagine it as a sea dragon lurking by the smoking site of Jeanne’s martyrdom, it can be thought-provoking.

I don’t know if the 16th-century church that stood on the square prior to the bombing of May 1944 was more appealing, but you may want to enter Saint Joan of Arc Church to see some of the stained glass of that former church that was presciently removed at the start of the war. Another highlight on the square, particularly for foodie Americans, is La Couronne, which calls itself the oldest inn in France (1345). It’s there that Julia Child claimed to have had the culinary epiphany that led her to becoming the high priestess of French cuisine in the United States.

As I say, I’d been to Rouen many times before and knew what to expect, so neither the church nor La Couronne held my interest. What did was a mirliton, a traditional pastry from Rouen that’s been around for centuries. It was especially for a mirliton that I’d come to the square. Specifically, to Christrophe Cressent’s Ma Boulangerie. (Closed Monday.)

A mirliton is made of egg, butter, sugar, almond powder and vanilla in a thin puff pastry, so what’s not to like? Christophe Cressent also makes an apple version. I bought the plain version with the intent of enjoying it in a nearby café, but by the time I checked out the nearby food market by the church I’d finished my mirliton. Good thing I got this beauty shot before going too far.

Though the pastry was gone, it was coffee, tea, perhaps wine time. When on an excursion, finding the right sat in the right setting is more important to me than the drink itself. I lucked upon the window seat at the cozy brasserie Mamie on the square. It was a fine seat from which to while away an hour and write up my excursion notes.

Final steps

The midwinter sun had long set by the time I returned to the cobblestones. I could see calling it a Rouen day at that point then making my way back to the station for the 6pm or 7pm train and returning to Paris at a reasonable time for dinner. But even in winter I don’t like to rush at the end of a city excursion. There’s always another café, bar, bistro or brasserie to stop into, or, weather permitting, a garden or park or riverside to visit.

I pursued my leisurely zigzagging in the town center. I looked in as some of the wine and cocktails bars in the Antique Dealers’ Quarter. Eventually, I made my way to the station area 45 minutes in advance of the 8:02pm train. It was inadvertently perfect timing for a pre-train glass of Normandy hard cider at Le Metropole (111 rue Jeanne d’Arc), a 1930 café-bar 100 yards from the station. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir would meet here in the 1930s, early in their couplehood. She was teaching at a high school in Rouen, he at a high school in Le Havre.

Return to Paris: So I took the 8:02, arriving in Paris at 9:20pm. I’d picked up an apple from a small grocer passed on the way to the station. I still had my misshapen gift croissant from the morning. They would suffice for dinner. Or might have had I not also opened the bag of Joan’s tears that I’d intended as a gift. And they were gift—as gift, as had been the entire day, to myself.

Thus ends a day trip to Rouen—mine, not necessarily yours. I leave it to you to create your own well-rounded, informative, tasty Rouen city-center walk-about. Or to join me on another one.

© 2026, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Rouen, Normandy: An Alluring, Well-Rounded Day Trip from Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

On the triple occasion of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, an exhibition of Ian Patrick’s portraits of Normandy veterans at the Army Museum at the Invalides in Paris, and the publication of the expanded second edition of D-Day Portraits: Héros Anonymes – Anonymous Heroes, his collection of portraits and first-hand accounts of veterans of the Invasion of Normandy who have returned over the years, I sat down with Ian to discuss his relationship with Normandy, with WWII veterans, and with the veteran who first awakened his interest in the “anonymous heroes” of the invasion that changed the course of the war: his father.

Ian Patrick is an American-born photographer, now a dual citizen, who moved to Paris in 1979 after launching a successful career as a portraitist in New York, where he photographed such well-known cultural figures of the time as Bob Marley and Andy Warhol, among others. It wasn’t until Ian was living in France that his father, William Patrick, when visiting, told him that he had taken part in the Invasion of Normandy 1944. Together, in 1980, they visited Utah Beach, where his father had landed six days after D-Day. Since then, Ian has returned frequently to the D-Day Landing Zone to photograph veterans of the Invasion of Normandy. With the disappearance of the generation that fought in the Second World War, his 44-year project of photographing veterans is coming to an end.

What do you remember of the first time you visited the D-Day Landing Zone?

It was 1979. I’d done a photography job in La Rochelle, and since my assistant and I weren’t in a rush to get the car back to Paris, we drove up the Atlantic coast and cut across to Normandy. I remember seeing the sign for Omaha Beach and driving down to the beach and saying, “Well, there’s nothing here!” We drove up and down the beach a couple times, unimpressed, and then went up to the cemetery where we got the jaw-drop view of the tombs and the channel beyond the cliff. But we didn’t spend much time in the area because we had to get back to Paris.

Then the next time you went back was with your father?

Yes. In 1980. My father flew over on a military plane, which he could do for free as a career military man. He flew from California to Dover, Delaware, from Dover to the Azores, from the Azores to Ramstein, Germany. Then he took the train to Paris, Gare de l’Est, and walked over to our apartment by the canal [Saint-Martin]. Sometimes he’d just show up, without letting us know he was coming. But this time we knew he was coming because he wanted to meet Véronique, my fiancée at the time, before we got married.

After a few days in Paris, he was bored and he said, “How about taking me up to Normandy?” And I said, “Sure, Dad, but if it’s Calvados [apple brandy] you want we can get it in Paris.” And he said, “Yeh, I’d like some Calvados, too, but I’d like to visit Normandy because I was there in the war.” I said, “You never told me about that.” He said, “Well, let’s go up there and I’ll tell you all about it.”

At the time I had a “Quatrelle,” one of those funky little Renault cars, that wasn’t exactly a bomb on the road. Dad didn’t want to go on the freeway but on the smaller national roads because he figured he’d recognize all kinds of stuff. As soon as we got into Normandy, which you do fairly quickly from Paris, he started noticing signs for Calvados and he asked me why were there so many of them. I told him that there are lots of farmers who make and sell Calvados. He said, “Let’s go get some.” We were still two hours from the beach. We went into one, where I introduced my father and told the farmer that he wanted to try some Calvados. The farmer said, “Here’s 7 years, 10 years, 15 years.” My father said, “Let’s start with the 10 years.” He tasted it and he said, “My god, this is so much better than the stuff we had during the war. Get three bottles of that.” I said, “Three bottles, Dad?” He said, “Yeh, one for you, one for me, and one for right now.”

So we started drinking it at 9 o’clock in the morning and by the time we got to Utah Beach, we were feeling “in our cups,” as they used to say, and he started talking to me about his time in the war. He landed at Utah Beach on June 12, so the beach had been won by then, of course, but there were still corpses around. My father had started off the war as a pilot but blew his eardrums out, so they put him on the ground, which he was really disappointed about. He was an armorer, making sure that guns were perfectly in alignment and worked and the bombs properly place, anything to do with ammunition. They had a special place on the airstrip where they could lift the tail up and fire at targets to make sure that the guns were aligned correctly. What’s incredible is that they actually had gun cameras on those machine guns and rockets so that same evening the films were developed and they would project them in the barn of the farm where they were staying and write down what needed to be done. And they saw the carnage they were creating for the Germans.

When he arrived on the 12th, the airstrip where he was assigned, which was just behind Sainte Mère Eglise, was still being finished by the Corps of Engineers. It was being made so that their P47s wouldn’t have to go back to England to refuel and rearm. He was there until the end of August, after the Germans had been hammered in the Falaise Gap. From there he went to Le Mans, then Nancy, then Saint Dizier, and also provided support for the Battle of Hürtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge. They put special pouches under the wings to drop ammunition and supplies to the men who were stuck in the Hürtgen Forest. They then moved into Germany.

I knew practically nothing of this before going to Normandy with him. I knew that he was in the war but he never talked about it. He was a career army man but he never talked about the war. I lived on army bases as a kid and saw army stuff all the time. When you’re a little kid you play army but you don’t necessarily ask your father if he ever killed any Germans or stuff like that. It was with our trip to Normandy that he started talking about it.

Why do you think it took your father so long after the war to come to Normandy given that returning there came to mean so much to him?

My parents came to Paris in 1950 on their honeymoon from Austria, where my father was stationed. My mother was already pregnant with me. I have photographs of him in his uniform at the Eiffel Tower—in those days you had to wear your uniform when you traveled. They also went to Nice. After I was born, we lived in Austria and later we lived in Germany. We’d go on vacation to the French Riviera or the Italian Riviera. They liked going to Vienna as well. But Dad never talked about the war. After we moved to the U.S., they loved coming back to Europe because they lived a long time here. But Normandy wouldn’t have been a place that he would think of going with my mother. So when he came to visit alone that time, it was an opportunity for him to go and for me to go with him. My mother had no interest in the war. But when she came with him later, she realized the effort and the massiveness of the invasion and… you can’t help, even if you’re opposed to the military and to war, you can’t help but take your hat off to those people who were a part of it and who lived through it. My parents returned may times, especially my father.

That trip with your father, to whom you dedicate “Anonymous Heroes,” your book of veterans’ portraits and their first-hand accounts, must have been the spark to your interest in photographing veterans.

Yes. We drove up and down the Utah Beach that first time. He showed me certain bunkers where he would tell me what kind of shell had hit it to make the hole or the mark on it, using all this military jargon. He was into ammunition because that was his job. Then he wanted to find the farm where the airstrip had been. Of course, the strip was no longer there, and there was no sign marking where it had been. Also, most farmers in the area didn’t want visitors. But we drove into one farm in my “Quatrelle,” where we met a lady named Alice. It was lunchtime, and she and the family came out with their napkins in their hands. “Oui, Monsieur?” she said to me. “Excusez-nous,” I said, “Mon papa est vétéran…” and right away she said to him, “Entrez, monsieur.” So we went in and they brought out two plates and we sat down to eat with them. My father was in tears, he couldn’t believe it. Their welcome was so sweet. At the end of the meal, the farmer went out to the barn, or wherever he went, and he comes back with a half-full dirty old bottle of dark alcohol, and written in chalk on the bottle was “1944.” He gave us each a little snort of it. It was absolutely delicious and my father started crying again. He said, “This isn’t the kind of stuff that we had in 1944. What we had was green rotgut, whatever we could find that the Germans left behind.” From there we went into Sainte Mère Eglise and we meet other people who then invited us in for coffee. My father couldn’t believe the welcome we were receiving. I took some pictures of him on the beach and in different places.

After that I decided to go up there every year on the sixth of June, and I would take pictures. Many times, there were no veterans at all. I would go each year, whether my father would come to France or not. Years later, I went to a fair in a hotel in Paris promoting Normandy for the upcoming 50th anniversary [1994]. By that time I’d already done a number of photographs. I met the secretary of the Comité du Débarquement [Landing Committee] and showed her some pictures. She said, “Oh c’est bien!” Then she explained that not only was she a part of the Landing Committee but she was also the director of the Musée de la Tapisserie in Bayeux, and she invited me to show my work in the Salle du Chevalier, which is the vaulted hall that later became the giftshop of the museum. So that was the first exhibition of my Normandy work, which I’d been taking just out of my own interest until then. From then on, she would send me an official invitation to the June 6th ceremonies every year so that I had actual credentials to go wherever I wanted to photograph veterans.

I also then started to interview the veterans, usually calling them on the phone after meeting them since there was no time to interview them during the ceremonies. On the phone, they would speak differently, more freely, as though to themselves, since they were alone and weren’t perturbed by my presence. Sometimes they’d go off track and I’d bring them back with another question. I asked them to tell me about their experience, whatever was bizarre or sad or happy that they wanted to recall. Most of them didn’t talk about terrible stuff. Some of the ones who landed on Omaha Beach did, in a very cold manner. A lot of them didn’t want to talk at all. I just tried to let them tell me what they wanted to tell me.

I wasn’t necessarily meeting them at the ceremonies. I would attend the big ceremonies, and I might come upon a smaller one here and there that I only learned about when I got there. Nine times out of ten it was just serendipity that brought me in contact with a veteran. I have photographed veterans I happened to come upon in the cemeteries while they’re paying homage to a particular person. I got the shot of Major Howard at Pegasus Bridge because the owner of the B&B where we were staying during the anniversary that year [1993] told us about an event that was taking place there on June 5th. So we immediately went there, and there they were, Major Howard and a few men popping Champagne. There weren’t that many people. There were no guys dressed up as paratroopers as you’d see more recently. There was just Madame Gondrée at the café by the bridge when I was in there talking with Bill Millin. Some years when there were few veterans, I would do landscapes, which is why there are some landscapes in the show and in the book, photographs of ceremonies and of places that reek with history.

In my first show for the 50th anniversary there was very little text next to the portraits. Just who they are, were they are, basic facts. Then little by little, as I took more portraits and gathered more stories, I realized that I had material for a book, which I put together with the backing of the Military Museum at the Invalides [in Paris] for the 65th anniversary in 2009. That year I also had exhibitions of my work at the Invalides and at the Museum of the Battle of Normandy in Bayeux, near the British Cemetery. That’s the first time that I put together the photos with the text [first-hand accounts] at an exhibition as well as putting them in the book.

After that first edition I continued to meet veterans, and even since completing the new edition last year I’ve met others. For example, I recently met some Belgian soldiers who managed to get to England during the war and joined up with a brigade that took part in the Invasion of Normandy under British command.

How often did your father return after that first visit?

He would come every two or every five years. He would come for the big ceremonies and some little ones as well. Even if it wasn’t the sixth of June, whenever my parents would come to France they would usually drive to Normandy, even without me.

In the early years of his visits, my father and I would be at Sainte Mère Eglise and school children would come up to him and ask him for his autograph. My father said, “Why do they want an autograph from me? I’m just an old veteran.” I had to bug him to put on his medals. He didn’t want to wear them, it embarrassed him because he thought it would be showing off. He didn’t even bring them for the 65th [2009] though I thought he might. I hadn’t told him in advance, but he was going to get the Legion of Honor at the Invalides that year along with 50 other veterans. I didn’t want to tell him before he got to France because I knew that he would be angry about getting a medal now. Finally, I told him about it when he got to France. He was kind of embarrassed. He hadn’t brought his medals, so I called my sister and asked her to dig through the drawers in his bedroom to find them and to send them asap. She did, and the day of the ceremony I pinned them on him. He complained, “Where the hell did you get those?” But he was enthralled by the whole thing, a big ceremony—he thought it was incredible. Then we all went to Normandy for the 65th anniversary commemorations. They reserved a train for the veterans, red carpet at the station, the band of the Garde Républicaine playing Glen Miller, wine and foie gras on the train. Then a bus took us from Caen to the American Cemetery. My father sat with all of the veterans on the podium, where they all shook Obama’s hand and Sarkozy’s hand. Then we all went back to Paris, exhausted.

He and my mother both passed away a year later, in 2010. They wanted their ashes spread together at Utah Beach, which we did.

Why did you want to put together a new edition of your book?

Because this could be the der des ders, the last flame. There are at least 25 additional veterans in this edition. I’ve met a lot more British and Americans but especially British through British families who live or have vacation homes in Normandy. I’ve gotten to know a lot of people in Normandy over the years. The British and the Dutch get together a lot, say for a drink on a Thursday or Friday evening, and a lot of them have fathers who were veterans. So I’d meet the fathers when they came over. Many of them have become part of the Deep Respect Association, with which I’m involved. [Editor’s note: Created in 2010, Deep Respect is a Normandy-based non-profit whose mission is to preserve and transmit the memory of veterans of the Second World War who contributed to the success of Operation Overload and to help veterans who participated in the Battle of Normandy visit the region.] We take around the veterans when they visit and it’s super interesting listening to them talk about their battles.

A series of your portraits and stories from the book are now on permanent display at the Overlord Museum Ohama Beach that’s located at the round-about where one turns to enter the Normandy American Cemetery. How did that come about?

The museum houses a tremendous collection of war materials—tanks, artillery, much more—started in the 1970s by Michel Leloup. He presented some of it in a museum in Falaise but as he grew the collection he began looking for more space and for a location with potential to draw a wider audience. He died before the project to move it to the site near the American Cemetery was completed. It was opened in 2013 by his son Nicolas.

For the 70th anniversary, in 2014, I had an exhibition at the round-about at Omaha Beach where the big monuments are located. Nicolas saw the exhibition and asked if he could buy some of the photos. I said, “Sure.” He bought about five. Since the veterans in the some of the photographs were at the event, we got pictures of them with the photographs, which they signed, which helped promote the museum. Over the next few years, the museum really took off, so Nicolas decided to expand the museum to show more of the collection, and in part of it he’s now consecrated one long corridor to presenting about 70 of my photographs—a lot of which he bought and some of which I donated—along with the text of the stories the veterans told me. My daughter Leah did the scenography and the soundtrack of 40s music and various sounds (waves, planes, bombs) for the exhibition.

You’ve now been photographing veterans for 44 years. With so few Normandy veterans still with us, and very few able or willing to travel, where does your project go from here?

I’ll still see some veterans this year and possibly next. But since I am basically a portraitist, there will soon no longer be men to photograph. That means that the project is now passing into the archival stage. It’s important to show them. I want to help maintain through the show at the Invalides, the permanent exhibition at the museum and the book the memory of those who are or will soon no longer be around to share their stories first-hand. The portraits are a way of people getting to know these veterans as they were as young men and as they were when I met them.

Where to see Ian Patrick’s photographic work

– His personal website Ian Patrick Photographer.
– Permanent exhibition at the Overlord Museum, near the entrance to the Normandy American Cemetery, Colleville-sur-Mer.
– The book: Héros Anonymes – Anonymous Heroes: D-Day Portraits. The captions and first-hand accounts of veterans are in both English and French. The book is available at major museums in the Normandy Landing Zone—the Overlord Museum, the Airborne Museum in Sainte Mère Eglise, the Arromanches Museum, the Utah Beach Museum and the Pegasus Bridge Museum—as well as at the Army Museum at the Invalides in Paris. It can also be ordered directly from the author by contacting him at ianpatrickphoto@gmail.com.
– Temporary exhibition at the Army Museum at the Invalides, June 1 to August 26, 2024. The exhibition is presented under the arcades surrounding the main courtyard. Entrance is free as it isn’t necessary to purchase to museum ticket in order to enter the courtyard. 129 rue de Grenelle, Paris.

© 2024. Interview conducted by Gary Lee Kraut.
All photos © Ian Patrick.

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Oh, the people you’ll meet and the food and drink you’ll taste when you leave the main roads in Normandy! Is your destination Deauville, Honfleur and the Flowered Coast or is it Caen, Bayeux and the D-Day Landing Beaches? Either way, let’s veer off at Pont l’Evêque for several tastes of Pays d’Auge, Auge Country: cheese, beer and apple brandy. Second in this three-part series, beer (and cider).

Cidre–(hard) cider—is a pleasing, inexpensive, low-alcohol beverage that marries well with certain cheeses. Geography makes that especially true in Normandy since the region, known for its semi-soft cow cheeses, grows 60% of France’s cider apples. The tartness of cidre brut (cider with low added sugar) suits the strong nose of washed-rind Pont l’Evêque or Livarot, and it can also accompany Camembert de Normandie, while the latter and cidre demi-sec (semi-sweet cider) can also make for worthy companions at the end of a meal.

Within Normandy, Pays d’Auge—Auge Country, a swatch of rural greenery between the Flowered Coast (Honfleur to Cabourg) and Lisieux—is prime territory for apple orchards. The apples are used to make Cidre Pays d’Auge, one of a handful of cider appellations in Normandy, as well as Calvados Pay d’Auge, a double-distilled apple brandy.

So having visited Jérôme and Françoise Spruytte to learn about farm-made Pont l’Evêque cheese, a local-minded traveler might stop in at a Pays d’Auge cider producer or any grocery or beverage shop to pick up a bottle of cider to enjoy with a baguette and a square of Pont l’Evêque before seeking the picture postcard picnic spot: a seat by an apple tree with a Norman cow grazing nearby and a half-timbered house in the background.

But wait: Is that a microbrewery in the village of Le Breuil-en-Auge, a few miles from the Spruyttes’ farm? Yes, indeed: Sagesse.

We’d been center of the village of Le Breuil earlier in the afternoon for a lovely lunch at Le Dauphin, where Chef Mathieu Le Guillois prepared a prettily plated meal of refined, fresh fare. Now we backtracked to Sagesse, the brewery/taproom just across the street. With all due respect to local cider producers, we entered Sagesse to discuss craft beer with owner Nicolas Vieillard. Sagesse is the French word for wisdom so it seemed a sensible thing to do.

There’s a sociological study to be made of friendly microbrewers who formerly worked in IT and now have long beards and brew beer named with references from film and literature. I’d met Nicolas seven or so years ago when he was a clean-shaven Parisian suburbanite brewing in Maisons-Laffitte. He and his wife Valérie, who designs the labels, moved to Le Breuil-en-Auge in 2018. (The beard grew out during Covid lockdown.) He’d now gone native, so to speak, by brewing a range of quality organic craft beer mostly using Norman malts and French hops, to be enjoyed in a rustic taproom (open Thurs.-Sat. from 4pm) in this Norman village, population 1000—or purchased in shops in Normandy.

What beer to choose for our pairing?

Nicolas says that he particularly likes pairing the range of his beers with a variety of young and aged Neufchâtel, the heart-shaped cheese produced in the northwestern portion of Normandy. But conceding to my point that we were in Pont l’Evêque and Livarot territory, he suggested a bottle of La Reine des Plages, a light lager, to accompany a younger Pont l’Evêque, and La Fiancé du Pirate, a crafty red, to accompany a more aged Pont l’Evêque. Personally, I took a liking to L’Imperatrice, Sagesse’s stout, which would pair best with a Livarot, a stronger cheese.

The taproom is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 4-9pm. Earlier or on other days, you can try ringing the bell at the brewery, and if someone answers you might plead gently with that person to sell you some bottles to go. Otherwise, the village grocer (closed Sunday afternoon and Monday) sells Sagesse, as do many other grocers and beverage shops in the region.

As I mentioned above, you can then seek out the picture postcard picnic spot by an apple orchard. But having veered off from a pairing of cheese with cider, you might deviate from that cliché to head over to Lac Terre d’Auge, a lake that also lends itself to summer swimming just outside of Pont l’ l’Evêque.

Sagesse, 4 Rue André Druelle, 14130 Le Breuil-en-Auge, 06 30 56 65 89. Taproom open Thursday, Friday and Saturday 4-9pm.

Le Dauphin, 2 rue de l’Eglise, 14130 Le Breuil-en-Auge. 02 31 65 08 11. Closed Sunday dinner, Monday, Wednesday dinner.

Official tourist information about this portion of Pays d’Auge can be found here.

Return to Part 1 of this series: Cheese: Jérôme Spruytte’s Pont l’Evêque.

© 2022, Gary Lee Kraut

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Oh, the people you’ll meet and the food and drink you’ll taste when you leave the main roads in Normandy! Is your destination Deauville, Honfleur and the Flowered Coast or is it Caen, Bayeux and the D-Day Landing Beaches? Either way, let’s veer off at Pont l’Evêque for several tastes of Pays d’Auge, Auge Country: cheese, beer and apple brandy. First in this three-part series, the cheese. Whether you’re a traveler in Normandy or looking for enjoyable tastes elsewhere…

Pont l’Evêque is an unremarkable town that’s lent its name to a memorable cheese. It’s one of the fab four appellation cheeses of Normandy, the others being Camembert de Normandie, Livarot and Neufchâtel. A square, soft, unpressed cheese with a washed rind and a wavy top, Pont l’Evêque can be stinky to the nose but the taste is affable. It varies, depending on the cheese’s age, from creamy mild to a soft mix of grass, leather and hay, without ever entering the stables. It comes in pasteurized and raw-milk versions. But we don’t come to Norman cow country for pasteurized cheeses.

I took a country road in search of the best and most uncommon of the raw-milk versions: Pont l’Evêque fermier. Fermier (farm-made) on the label indicates here that the cheese is made with raw cow milk whose transformation begins soon after milking, while the milk—from cows fed from the pastures and grains of the farm itself—is still warm. All, including its initial aging, is carried out on the same farm.

Meet Jérôme Spruytte, one of only a handful of devotees to producing Pont l’Evêque fermier.

Jérôme is a time-honored cheese crafter who comes from a farming tradition rather than a hipster notion of returning to the soil. His grandfather, also named Jérôme, began making cheese here in the agricultural village of Saint-Philbert-des-Champs in 1933. The current Jérôme maintains an age-old approach starting with cows with a healthy, diverse diet, fed from the farm’s own 370 acres (150 hectares) of varied pastures. Rather, he and Françoise, his wife, do since Françoise also has a hand in this, as well as being well occupied in her role as the mayor of this village of 650.

The couple lives in a house near the village church. Their farm buildings are also across the street from the church. So no need to ask for directions—find the church and you’ll find Jérôme and Françoise Spruytte’s Ferme du Bourg.

Regulations for the Pont l’Evêque appellation call for at least 50% of the milk coming from Norman cows, but the Spruyttes’ cheese is based on a herd of Norman cows only. With a herd of 100, the Spruyttes transform about 20-25% of the farm’s milk production into raw-milk Pont l’Evêque. The rest is sent to other producers in the region to be transformed into Camembert de Normandie. (Note the “de Normandie,” which designates raw-milk camembert produced in Normandy, unlike other camemberts, typically pasteurized, whether made in Normandy or not).

Using 3.6 liters (nearly a US gallon) of milk to produce one medium-size square of Pont l’Evêque, the Spruyttes make 110 cheeses per session, normally two sessions per day, 365 days per year. Call it passion, call it a way of life, call it “this is what we do.” Their Pont l’Evêque is prepared and aged in a small installation on the ground floor and basement of the building where Jérôme’s parent once lived, the oldest part of which dates from the 16th century.

After firming up in its square mold for several day, frequently being turned and positioned in phase with the room’s humidity, the shaped cheese is wrapped and moved to the basement. Aligned, the squares look like journal notebooks on a shelf, ready to record the initial passage of time. They are then taken to a second basement space for further aging. It all looks quite simple (and labor intensive). And that’s the beauty of farm-made cheese that eventually develops a personality that’s rustic to the nose and mellow to the taste.

Pont l’Evêque fermier is aged here at least 18 days (a minimum of 21 days for the larger size) before being available for sale. Most is sold after 25-28 of aging. After 30 days, Jérôme says, locals, accustomed to the availability of younger versions in the countryside, no longer want it, but Parisians do as they often prefer more aged Pont l’Evêque. As for aged versions, Jérôme says that 30-45 days is ideal for his fermier. Test the difference yourself by buying halves of two or three different ages.

Raw-milk artisanal and farm cheeses will change in taste through the year depending on what the cows have been grazing on in a particular season. The variety of pastureland at the farm makes for a rich diet from spring through fall when the cows are out grazing. Though absolute consistency isn’t the aim (like a proud parent, Jérôme welcomes the individuality of each batch, each square), the tastefulness of farm-made cheese is maintained in winter by the cows continuing to enjoy a varied winter diet of grain directly grown on the farm. He nevertheless recognizes the strain that European Union regulations put on producers such as himself as he tries to maintain “the expression of the cheese” from being standardized.

Spend 30 minutes with Jérôme and you’ll understand the earthy heart of cheesemaking as it involves land, cows, cellars and constant work. Spend 30 minutes with Françoise and you’ll want to vote for her to be your mayor, too. While the installations in the house are off-limits to visitors for health reasons, visitors are welcome for a chat and a purchase at the little shack of a shop at the farm. Don’t expect to communicate with Jérôme or Françoise in English but through curiosity. As Françoise says, “When people are interested, we always manage to communicate.”

Pick up your cheese at the farm, buy some bread in the town of Le Breuil-en-Auge (or Pont l’Evêque earlier in your day), then find yourself a spot for a picnic, for example by the beach of the Lac Terre d’Auge, outside the town of Pont L’Evêque, or simply here, by the road, by the church.

Now what to drink with this picnic? Other than for the designated driver, consider accompanying your Pont l’Evêque with Norman cidre (hard cider) or with beer produced by a local brewer whom you’ll soon also meet on these pages.

Jérôme and Françoise Spruytte, Ferme du Bourg, 14130 Saint-Philbert-des-Champs. Tel: 02 31 64 71 99. A 15-minute drive from Pont l’Evêque. Farm shop closed on Sunday afternoons. Present at the Pont l’Evêque food market on Monday mornings.

Pont l’Evêque and surroundings have labeled their territory Terre d’Auge for tourism purposes. See the official tourist information site is terredauge-tourisme.fr. As a traveler, however, there’s no need to know the limits of this specific territory. The beautiful village of Beuvron-en-Auge is a short drive to the west. A short drive to the south is the Basilica of Lisieux, a Catholic pilgrimage destination. Official tourist information about the broader area of Calvados, one of the five departments or sub-regions that comprise Normandy, can be found here.

© 2022, Gary Lee Kraut

Also read this article about the fab four of Norman cheeses and this article about cidre (hard cider) and calvados (apple brandy) on Fance Revisited.

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Until the spring of 2021, Deauville’s high culture credentials consisted of misty seascapes by 19th-century artist Eugène Boudin, pages from Marcel Proust’s early 20th-century opus in which Swann swans around with his aristocratic pals, and scenes from director Claude Lelouche’s sentimental 1966 movie “A Man and A Woman.”

This isn’t the town’s fault since Deauville was never intended to be “serious” place. A recent creation by French standards, Deauville was mere marshland until a group of rich investors—fronted by Napoleon III’s half-brother the Duke of Morny—decided to develop an Atlantic Xanadu from scratch in the 1860s. Stately pleasure domes, turreted neo-Gothic castles and towering half-timbered manors quickly rose above the dunes after the train link to Paris was established in 1863. Grander and grander hotels opened in the Belle Epoque period preceding WWI, with the Hotel Normandy, which opened in 1912, remaining the prime example of luxury accommodations in the region.

Situated 130 northwest of Paris, proximity to the capital has always been Deauville’s ace-in-the-hole, but generations of loyal visitors never looked for more than good times: horse races, casino gambling, sailing, golf, polo, tennis, shopping (this is the town where Coco Chanel first went retail) and fresh seafood. Notably, the racetrack was in service before the founders got around to planning a parish church. In 1975, the town established the American Film Festival, a largely frivolous and friendly festival held each September with none of the artsy pretentiousness and cut-throat intrigue of Cannes.

In short, experiencing the fine arts in Deauville essentially came down to spotting Jennifer Lawrence sipping café au lait on a hotel terrace … until now.

Having waited over 150 years to make its debut cultural statement, Deauville decided to pull out all the stops. In May, the Mayor of Deauville, Philippe Augier, inaugurated Les Franciscaines, a 21st-century culture and media complex within a recently abandoned and thoroughly renovated 19th-century convent. The complex consists of a library, an auditorium, a museum, an art gallery, creation labs and a restaurant.

The infrastructure was already at hand. In 1875, two Deauville sisters, Adèle and Joséphine Mérigault, commissioned a clinic, a vocational school and an orphanage for the daughters of mariners lost at sea. All of the above were managed by the Franciscan Sisters but by 2011 the few elderly nuns who still lived on the premises were ready to sell up and relocate to a nearby retirement residence with modern conveniences such as central heating.

To qualify the ensuing municipal makeover as a fixer-upper is an understatement: the sadly rundown convent, acquired for four million euros, required another four million for studies and planning, plus a whopping 17-million-euro construction budget. In 2015, the Paris-based Moatti-Rivière architectural firm (the Musée Borély in Marseille; the Hôtel de la Marine in Paris; the new environmentally correct re-do of the Eiffel Tower’s first level; Jean-Paul Gaultier’s design HQ) was selected from over 180 candidates for the renovation.

According to Alain Moatti, “do not destroy” is the prime directive when approaching an architectural project like this. From the exterior, the only new additions are the twinned, 49-feet-high towers that signal the entry. Past the front desk admissions booth, visitors proceed to the former 4,300-square-foot cloister, which has been roofed, lit by a dazzling chandelier composed of 14,285 light tubes, and transformed into every periodical lover’s idea of heaven with comfy chairs and almost every newspaper and magazine available for free reading.

The rest of the ground floor is occupied by a fully modular 230-seat auditorium in the former chapel decorated with stained glass windows portraying the life of St Francis of Assisi; a bookshop; and a classy, health-and-planet-conscious restaurant, La Réfectoire. The latter, located in the convent’s erstwhile mess hall, serves brunches, tea and sweets, and full lunches with delicious options like beet borscht adorned with fresh shrimp, goat cheese, sprouts and pine nuts.

Les Franciscaines’ crowning glory is a 6,600-square-feet exhibition space, diminutive by major museum standards, which provides proof that the old adage “good things come in small packages” often rings true. As an artful transition from the building’s former use, the museum’s opening exhibition focused on depictions of the hereafter and featured prestigious loans.

Les Franciscaines profits from local largesse because Deauville isn’t just any small town. Case in point: A smaller gallery on the upper floor displays short-term loans from Deauville residents… people who just “happen to have” paintings by Pierre Soulages, Yves Klein or Joan Mitchell in their living rooms. The considerable permanent collection of André Hambourg (1909 – 1999; a French artist noted for luminous seascapes) that includes works by his friends Marie Laurencin and Foujita, is on display in a separate gallery.

Whether the high quality of the opening shows will continue remains to be seen, but Deauville has set its sights on making Les Franciscaines a cultural institution of national, even international consequence. See the agenda for current and upcoming exhibitions here.

The extensive library upstairs is also a treasure trove of art and not just of the bookish kind. Les Franciscaines is the repository of the rotating collection assembled by Peindre en Normandie, an association founded in 1992 to celebrate well-known as well as relatively unknown painters who depicted Normandy from 1750 to 1950. Between and above the shelves, browsing book lovers will come face-to-face with actual paintings by Monet, Bonnard, Boudin and others. Many of the Impressionist paintings will be touring Chinese museums for the next few years, but there is still plenty of artwork by the likes of Raoul Dufy and Edouard Vuillard to adorn the walls, as well as a large photography collection that spotlights Deauville past and present snapped by Cartier-Bresson, Gisèle Freund, Peter Lindberg, Mario Testino, Willy Rizzo and Karl Lagerfeld among others.

The library specializes in Deauville history, lifestyle, cinema, children’s literature and equestrian books. (The latter includes a royal riding manual published in 1666.) The magic for most bibliophiles is the library’s wide variety of seating options. There are tables and chairs with places for computers; cozy arm chairs, couches and even full-length beds for people who want to stretch out when they read. As befits a 21st-century media library, Les Franciscaines also offers lectures, interactive digital access and family-friendly workshops.

The library and workshops will likely be of most interest to people with fairly fluent French. Nevertheless, through Les Franciscaines’ exhibitions, restaurant and the sheer pleasure of walking through or sitting in its media libraries, English-speaking visitors to Deauville now have a fascinating indoor culture option for rainy days. And there’s never a shortage of rain in Normandy.

Les Franciscaines, 145B avenue de la République, 14800 Deauville. Tel.: 02 61 52 29 00. Open from 10 :30 am to 6 :30 Tuesday through Sunday; closed December 25 and May 1; open daily during school holidays. A 15€ day pass gives access to all the exhibitions.

Getting There: For Parisians, Deauville is one the closest beach destinations, and for that reason it’s often called the Paris’s 21st arrondissement. Direct trains from Paris’s Gare Saint Lazare train station take about 2 hours 20 minutes. (When the train line was established in 1863, the same trip took six hours!) Les Franciscaines, the racetrack, the casino, the beaches and more are all within a 20-minute walk from the train station.

© 2021, Corinne LaBalme

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The 75th anniversary of D-Day is the occasion to commemorate the lives and actions and deaths of those involved in “the greatest sea invasion of military history” as well as the opportunity to reflect on how the events of 1944 relate to us, individually and collectively, today. We would be remiss to do one without the other.

Through movies, documentaries, books, speeches, visits and the stories of veterans, we have many memories and visions of D-Day and the ensuing 10-week Battle of Normandy. And we are moved, in a generic sense, by the view of the imaculate lawns and orderly Crosses and occasional Star of David at the American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach. But moved to do what, exactly? To take pictures? To shout “We’re number one”? To jump from a parachute? To open a B&B near the coast? To read deeper? To fight for world peace? To learn about the experiences of veterans of other foreign wars? To visit other war cemeteries? To wonder why we aren’t equally “moved” by the thought of soldiers who died in Vietnam or Iraq? To honor The Four Freedoms?

Each head of state who speaks at a major ceremony seeks to interpret D-Day and the events leading to it and flowing from it in such a way that it presents a lesson or thread that fits with his or her vision of the world today. Each of them attempts to articulate his or her nations ambitions relative to the past. Passing time and evolving circumstances require that, at the risk of losing the thread altogether or twisting it to tie up an otherwise unrelated vision.

Museums, memorials, exhibitions and events throughout the former battle zone of Normandy have also evolved over time as they, too, seek to present the connection between then and now. And each major commemorative year brings with it new ways of informing, guiding, entertaining and profiting from visitors drawn to the region’s war history. Those developments are telling in their own way.

Beyond the commemorative ceremonies that accompany the 75th anniversary of D-Day and of the liberation of Norman villages and towns that followed, here are five ways in which organizations and businesses are using, (re)interpreting or inspired by Normandy’s wartime memory in 2019.

1. Normandy’s International Forum for Peace

The Peacemakers: That’s the theme of Normandy’s second annual International Forum for Peace, held in Caen June 4 and 5, i.e. immediately prior to the 75th anniversary commemorations. The forum was created in the context of Normandy’s memory of war but is focused on dealing with present wars and future conflicts rather than on the past. This year’s discussions and debates will concern tensions in Cameroon, the impact of Brexit on Irish Peace Accords, the post-peace process in Colombia, Chinese diplomacy in the new world order, conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the civil war in Syria, among other conflicts. Forum participants will be invited to sign the Normandy Peace Manifesto to be presented by four Nobel Peace Prize recipients—Jody Williams (American; involved in the fight against anti-personnel mines), Mohamed El Baradei (Egyptian; former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency), Leymah Gbowee (Liberian; leader of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace) and José Romos Horta (East Timorese; former president who worked for a peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timora)—and other recognized and would-be peacemakers. The prevailing view of participants, if not by leaders of the world’s most powerful militaries, will undoubtedly be that of multilateralism and the sense of an international community are the central tenets of making peace.

2. Rockwell, Roosevelt & The Four Freedoms at the Caen Memorial Museum

In January 1941, eleven months before the United States declared war on Japan then on Germany, Franklin Roosevelt articulated in his State of the Union speech the four fundamental freedoms that he said should be enjoyed by people everywhere: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. For its exhibition in this 75th anniversary year, the Caen Memorial Museum, in partnership with the Norman Rockwell Museum, is presenting an exhibition of Rockwell’s work with his iconic paintings of the Four Freedoms as its centerpiece. The Rockwell paintings were first published in The Saturday Evening post in early 1943, by which time the United States was well into its engagement in the war. Needless to say, such a speech would not be given today, and today the paintings themselves might be misinterpreted as honoring nostalgia rather than freedom. Other famous and lesser-known works by Rockwell and his contemporaries give necessary context to those freedoms and those paintings. The exhibition runs from June 10 to October 27, 2019. Here’s the trailer:

3. Great Women During the War at the Juno Beach Centre

Canada is not a bellicose nation, so it’s no surprise that the Juno Beach Centre, situated just off the beach where Canadian forces landed on June 6, 1944, is the least militaristic of the museums in the Landing Zone, not to mention the one with the friendliest staff. The Centre is at once a memorial, a museum and a cultural center dedicated not only to the Canadian role in the Second World War but to broader cultural issues, then and now. The current exhibition, running through December 2019, speaks of the contributions of women during the war. It examines their courage, anguish, fear and mourning as well as the ways in which they led the way to changes in society.

4. Dinner with veterans at La Chenevière

La Chenevière, a 5-star chateau-hotel with restaurant just inland from the port of Port-en-Bessin on the route to Bayeux, is collaborating with The Greatest Generation Foundation to host a series of 17 dinner events featuring the presence of American veterans who took part in the Battle of Normandy 1944. The evening begins with a brief lecture that is then followed by a gastronomic meal during which participants have the opportunity to converse with one of the veterans. These dinners, which began in April, take place every other Thursday until Nov. 28, 2019. 190€ per person, reservation required. It isn’t necessary to spend the night at the hotel to attend.

5. Expansion of the Overlord Museum at Colleville-sur-Mer

The Overlord Museum opened in 2014 in time for the 70th anniversary by the roundabout to the entrance to the American Cemetery. It’s a private museum created by Nicolas Leloup, the son of a collector of WWII military vehicles and other military artefacts. The staging of this large collection of war material follows a tendency on the part of certain museums, especially private museums, to dramatize displays in order to appeal to a public that might otherwise be bored or lost with a straightforward or explanatory presentation. The 75th anniversary year brings with it an extension to the museum that includes a scene about the Mortrain counterattack and a section dedicated to the role of the aviation. But the drama isn’t always staged. Sometimes it’s naturally present yet removed from war, as in the presentation of Ian Patrick’s photographs from his book Anonymous Heroes, showing veterans who returned to the Landing Beaches for D-Day commemorations 45 to 60 years later.

See Taps in the Normandy American Cemetery, A France Revisited Minute.

© 2019, Gary Lee Kraut

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Nevertheless, 35 years ago “bartender” was one of the most promising lines on my resume, and I am not immune to cocktail trends or simply to a good brandy cocktail come aperitif time.

Among the trio of brandies mentioned above, cognac and armagnac, as grape-based spirits, carry more prestige than apple-based calvados, yet calvados is the one I most frequently encounter on my travels for the simple reason that I visit Normandy from Paris more often than I visit Charente or Gascony. One of those visits to Normandy was to the Calvados Nouvelle Vogue International Trophies, an annual bartending competition to create the best calvados-based cocktails.

The competition is held in a different location in Normandy each year in spring, for example the pretty port town of Granville in 2017 and the city of Caen in 2018. I attended last year’s edition and was invited to serve on the jury for the inter-journalist competition. I even had a chummy moment with that year’s master of ceremonies, Colin Field, head bartender of the Hemingway Bar at the Ritz in Paris and the most famous barman in France. That for the photo op.

When it comes to calvados cocktails in particular, the shout-out goes to Marc Jean, who has just celebrated 30 years of tending bar at Le Normandy, the venerable Barrière-owned hotel in Deauville.

Jean began his working life at the age of 16, in 1982, as an apprentice waiter at another of the region’s great historic hotels, the Grand Hôtel de Cabourg. But it was behind the bar that he would make a home for himself. Hired as third barman at the Normandy in 1988, he rose to head barman in 2000. One of the original participants in the Calvados Nouvelle Vogue competition, he is now one of its organizers as well as president of the Association des Barmen de Normandie.

As a Norman born and bred, calvados naturally hold place of honor on his liquor shelves. He has created numerous calvados cocktails. Four of his recipes can be found below.

Before turning to mixology, however, a brief history of the brandy called calvados.

A Brief History of Calvados

Normandy has been prime territory for fermented apple juice, i.e. hard cider, since the early 16th century. The first record of the fermented juice being distilled to make brandy (eau-de-vie in French) dates to 1553. Though produced for centuries, the spirit became largely associated with the Normandy department (or sub-region) named Calvados in the 19th century. In 1942 it gained status as a legally recognized appellation, meaning only apple brandy produced within a specifically delimited zone could be called calvados. Wartime—1942—may seem an odd time to be seeking official appellation status, particularly as the Germans were increasingly building up defenses along the coast in order to repel an eventual Allied invasion. But the war was in fact a major reason for producers to seek regulation of the term calvados for their brandy: during the German Occupation, the only copper stills that were not requisitioned by Germany for military purposes were those used for appellation products. It’s a spirit that Allied soldiers got to know following D-Day during the Battle of Normandy 1944.

Calvados, affectionately known as calva, is largely produced in the Normandy departments of Calvados and Manche (which represent the major of the zone in which the Battle of Normandy took place). There are also designated production zones just over the border in Mayenne and Sarthe and in the area around the town of Neufchatel, further west in Normandy.

AOC (Controlled Appellation of Origin) Calvados represents the majority of brandy production in the region, while two other AOCs within restrained zones are Calvados Pays d’Auge and Calvados Domfrontais. For the latter, produced in area on the southern edge of Normandy that lends itself to growing pears, the brandy is a made from distilling the fermented juice of apples and at least 30% pears.

Calvados Cocktails

For much of its history calvados has been imbibed in its pure state. It has also found its way into the kitchen. And increasingly over the past 20 years it has been used in cocktails. Or 22 years to be precise since a major influence in the spread of the gospel of the calvados cocktail has been the Calvados Nouvelle Vogue competition, which was launched in 1996.

Originally a regional bartending competition, Calvados Nouvelle Vogue International Trophies, as it came to be called, now includes bartenders from 15 countries, mostly European, themselves winners of national competitions which draw 500 competitors. Competitors are judged on creativity, dexterity and the story they tell about the inspiration for their cocktail, along with its taste and presentation. A theme is given each year—this year, vegetables. A Polish bartender, Robert Piasecki took top prize, followed by a Swede and a Belgian.

Last year’s winner, on the theme of the sea, was French bartender Yolanda Fouquet, whose cocktail brought together calvados and beer from Brittany. (She returned as a competitor in 2018 but didn’t make the podium.) A competition among student bartenders and another among journalists are also held.

Among Marc Jean’s many Calvados-based cocktails, long and short, I’ve selected below, with permission, four recipes from Cocktails au Calvados, a collection of recipes that he co-authored with Dominique Grousseaud. I’ve selected these because they represent a relatively easy introduction to making Calvados-based cocktails with ingredients that you’re likely to have at home. (For more complex concoctions go see Marc Jean at Le Normandy in Deauville.)

You’ll need the calvados, of course.

When traveling in the production zones in Normandy you’ll undoubtedly drive by apple farms that offer a tasting or a visit of their installations. Local tourist offices can provide a list of those that receive visitors. Some of the best are produced in the Pays d’Auge and under that appellation, but there is quality elsewhere as well.

During my own travels in the region, I enjoy the encounter as much as anything. Quality of the calva is often the secondary pleasure but nothing beats meeting a quality producer with a good story to tell.

More than half of calvados production is exported, with the U.S. placing near the top of the list, so you’ll have little trouble finding some at a decent liquor store at home. Calvados is aged in oak vats for a minimum of two years (three years for calvados domfrontais). Long-aged calvados of six years or more may be more difficult to find in ordinary liquor stores at home. Anyway, a young calvados of two or three years of oak aging is more appropriate for most cocktails since they provide the fruity aromas that are often sought. Older brandies can also add their distinctiveness to a cocktail, but personally I’m saving mine for a nightcap.

© 2018, Gary Lee Kraut

Calvados Cocktail Recipes

Here are four pages from Cocktails au Calvados, a collection of recipes by Marc Jean and Dominique Grousseaud, reproduced with permission.

Further information about calvados and hard cider in Normandy can be found on France Revisited in this article and in more detail on the site of IDAC, the Interprofession des Appellations Cidricoles, the association of professionals involved with appellation (hard) cider products, those made from cider apples and perry pears.

For information about cocktail-bar tours and encounters with mixologists in Paris see here.

France Revisited reminds readers to drink responsibly and with moderation.

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Two films are shown at the Airborne Museum in Sainte Mere Eglise. One of them is among the better introductory films to a visit to the Landing Zone. The other is undoubtedly the worst.

The first, the older one, is a 21-minute documentary that uses a Jaws-like signal of danger as it describes the German occupation, the development of German defenses along the coast, and the civilians’ long wait for liberation. Then the action begins: a fire at midnight destroys the house that stood on the property that is now the museum, people rush from their homes, the fire brightens the night as paratroopers drop from the sky. The beach landing then begins at dawn nearby, battles rage in town, along the country roads and in the hedgerows. They are Americans, to the surprise of many, not English. Lives are lost, freedom is regained, burials take place in what is now the town’s soccer field. The film is short, dramatic and informative, a moving invitation to visit the museum and the sights throughout the Landing Zone.

You may have seen such images and films like this at home; there are plenty on Youtube. But here at Sainte Mère Eglise they take on special significance. In this area where men of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions landed on the night of June 5-6 1944 to secure bridges and roads before the dawn landing of troops on Utah Beach you now stand. A parachute hanging from the steeple of the church across the square lets you know immediately that you’ve arrived at the right place.

After being shown for years in a small screening space in the museum’s second building, behind a Douglas C-47, the type of plane from which the paratroopers were dropped, that 21-minute film was moved in 2016 to a larger space called the Ronald Reagan Franco American Conference Center. The Airborne Museum itself is a non-profit organization. Of the conference center’s €1.2 million construction cost, €350,000 was financed by The Reagan Legacy Foundation.

The Reagan film at the Airborne Museum

The space where the introductory film was previously shown now presents a film glorifying Ronald Reagan. That film is disturbing out of place in this museum.

The older 21-minute film and the newer 7-minute Reagan glorification film (2015) both use 1940s footage to set the stage. Yet whereas the old film shows Eisenhower visiting black-faced Allied troops as they prepare for nighttime assault, the more recent film shows Reagan in make-up and uniform in a Hollywood studio. We are all but told to equate the man playing soldier in Hollywood with the real soldiers in Normandy. An elderly fellow in the film, presented as speaking for all veterans, refers to Reagan as “one of us.”

Without mentioning Franklin Roosevelt, the sitting American president during the Invasion of Normandy, the old film tells about Allies pushing their way to Berlin to defeat a Nazi Germany. The newer film shows Reagan at Pointe du Hoc as though no other president ever honored the veterans and the fallen of the Second World War. It shows Reagan at the Berlin Wall calling on the leader of the Soviet Union “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” as though John Kennedy had never stood there. The old film leads curious visitors to want to discover and contemplate the war sites of Normandy. The new film has Michael Reagan, the president’s son, president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation, giving a sales pitch.

Has the Airborne Museum sold its out on its own mission in order to “memorialize the accomplishments of [Reagan’s] presidency,” to quote a goal of the Reagan Legacy Foundation?

The Reagan Triptych

That 7-minute film is one of a triptych of Reagan images that have been strategically placed at the Airborne Museum so that we shall never forget… Ronald Reagan.
1. His name appears on the conference center. So be it, the foundation led by his son Michael provided a third of the funding.
2. In the exit hall of the building called Operation Neptune, opened in 2014, which shows dioramas presenting various scenes from the airborne landing, one sees portraits of German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and French President Charles de Gaulle, who in 1963 signed the Elysées Treaty in Paris as a firm handshake of reconciliation between the two nations, along with a more prominent and gratuitous image of Reagan 20 years later.
3. And then there’s that film, so intent on placing Reagan, like Forrest Gump (or is it Kim Jong-Un?), at the heat of the action that viewers are led to believe that he would have been a hero on the beaches themselves had he not been… (dramatic pause in the film)… nearsighted.

No, Ronald Reagan was not who my father thought about while in Europe caring for wounded during the war. No, the soldiers did not carry a photograph of Reagan with them into battle. When Eisenhower said to his troops, “The eyes of the world are upon you,” he was not referring to a single man. Normandy is not Reagan’s legacy.

D-Day revisited, again and again

Ronald Reagan was the first American president to commemorate D-Day in France, for it took years for D-Day to be so specifically and particularly commemorated and celebrated. For near 20 years after the war, D-Day and the Invasion of Normandy were largely seen as a step, albeit an important step, in vanquishing Nazi Germany, but requiring no specific commemoration. It took some time for D-Day to gain a singular status in the American consciousness, coalescing our sense of sacrifice for a righteous cause, of honor, strength and the perfect combination of individual and collective effort, and of ultimate victory.

The movie “The Longest Day” was released in 1962. The Airborne Museum opened in 1964, placing it among the first D-Day museums in Normandy, along with the nearby Utah Beach Museum.

As the war receded in time and as many other battles and wars filled newscasts, D-Day—and D-Day above all—became for many the symbol of how we want to see our military might: bringing freedom to the oppressed, supporting and encouraging democracy. D-Day affirms our sense of the United States as the essential nation for forces of good in the world, to the point of diminishing the role of our Allies.

By the late 1960s veterans, then in their 40s, began returning to Normandy to visit the Landing sites, the tombs of their comrades at arm and the new museums. We were sinking into the quagmire of the Vietnam War then. Soldiers who helped turn back the Tet Offensive returned home not to celebration and thanks but to anti-war demonstrations. And June 6, 1944, already gaining prominence over any other date in the war, came further into focus for Americans nostalgic for battles with a clear and righteous cause. The nation that helped bring about D-Day, that was the nation we wanted to be.

More years passed, and in 1984 the 40th anniversary brought together in Normandy, at the invitation of French President Francois Mitterrand, the heads of state of the victorious nations involved in the Invasion of Normandy: Reagan and Pierre Trudeau of Canada, along with Queen Elizabeth II and the monarchs of Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Norway. At Pointe du Hoc Reagan shined, with large media coverage, as he spoke with simplicity and force about “the men of Normandy,” “the boys of Pointe du Hoc,” and how “[Europe’s] hopes are our hopes and [Europe’s] destiny is our destiny.”

Stirring indeed, but the facts and images associating Ronald Reagan with D-Day and the Invasion of Normandy are out of context at the Airborne Museum. Visitors may hold Ronald Reagan in the Pantheon of American heroes, if they wish. Savor his words at Pointe du Hoc, if you wish. But why single out Reagan here?

Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq again, Syria, etc. Americans are accustomed to hearing about our military expeditions overseas, yet many continue to see D-Day as our ultimate symbol and pride. Where better place and time to save Private Ryan in 1998 than in Normandy in 1944? President Clinton spoke in Normandy on 50th anniversary of D-Day, Bush on the 60th, Obama on the 65th and 70th, but perhaps the administrators at the Airborne Museum were too busy making doe eyes to the Reagan Legacy Foundation and too nostalgic for the Cold War to bother to look that up what those presidents said.

The evolution of museums in the Landing Zone

I have long appreciated the directness and authenticity (or near-authenticity) of the Airborne Museum. The Waco glider with a “stick” of soldier-mannequins, the Douglas C-47, the uniforms and equipment, the possessions packed in paratrooper bags (Chiclets, Lucky Strikes, condoms). That sense of authenticity recently led the museum to replace a Canadian-made Sherman tank built beginning in August 1944 with a Sherman M4 A4 75 of the type used by the Allies as of June 1944.

Of course it’s no longer enough to present tanks, arms, uniforms and planes and expect visitors understand what went on here. Context and explanations are necessary, but even that may not be enough to keep generations born this side of 1990 or 1980 or even 1970 interested and informed.

In 2014, the 70th anniversary of D-Day and the Liberation of France, I organized in Paris on behalf of France’s Heritage Journalist Association a round-table discussion about the evolution of museums and other war-related business and the potential for the “disneyfication” of the Landing Zone, the temptation to falsify in order to make the Invasion of Normandy seem more real, more entertaining. Magali Mallet, director of the Airborne Museum, was one of the participants. She spoke of the necessity to respond to the evolution of the clientele. (Americans represent less than 10% of the number of visitors to the Airborne Museum, about the same number of Dutch visitors.) The majority of visitors are French, including many school groups.) New visitors, Mallet said, have learned little in school about the events of June 1944 and it was therefore the task of the museum to captivate them through emotion rather than artifacts alone in order to then excite their curiosity and their desire to learn more.

I called Director Mallet after re-viewing the Reagan glorification film this month to ask how she saw Reagan’s role at the museum. She said that his place at the museum is not intrusive on the experience of visiting the museum or of its overall approach to informing the public. Veterans, she said, often say how much appreciate the Reagan film and recall his Pointe du Hoc speech. Reagan’s presence on the museum site is neither promotional nor political, she said.

The sons of David Dewhurst, a squadron commander who led a bombing run over Utah Beach minutes before the landing, have gathered over $2 million to help make the Utah Beach Museum the excellent museum it is today, but you don’t see them claiming that their father saved the day. Mention of Dewhurst and his sons is non-promotional and non-political as can be, that despite one of those sons being Republican lieutenant governor of Texas at the time of the donation.

Normandy was never the place to glorify a single man

From Saint Mère Eglise to Pegasus Bridge, from Falaise to Cherbourg via Caen, Bayeux and the five Landing Beaches, this is an extraordinary region to understand not just D-Day, but the entire war in Europe. More than that, it is a region to consider the nature of alliances and the reconciliation of former enemies, to feel and to reflect on national pride, to meet French, British, Canadian, Polish, Dutch, German and others who are heirs to the events of 1944 and the Second World War. It’s a place to consider the civilian victims of war of yesterday and today. But Normandy is not the place to glorify a single man. It is not the place for the singular hero-worship that the Airborne Museum has bestowed upon Ronald Reagan.

Mrs. Mallet, take down that film.

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut

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* * *

In Normandy, where dozens of museums tell about the D-Day Landing, the 75 days of the Battle of Normandy, the victory for the Allied forces against the German occupant and the Liberation, visitors to the region have, until recently, been offered scant information about the effects of war on civilian populations.

Yet, in addition to the deprivations, deportations and executions caused by the German occupant and in some cases by their French collaborators, Allied air strikes from 1942 to 1944 claimed 50-70,000 civilian victims in France. Of the 20,000 Normans who died as a direct result of the war, the majority were killed by Allied bombardments intended to weaken the Atlantic Wall, destroy enemy forces and prevent the possibility of German reinforcement during the Invasion of Normandy. Furthermore, about 150,000 Normans lost or had to leave their homes during the spring and summer of 1944.

Those numbers, significant as they are, seem small when one thinks—or tries to grasps—that the Second World War caused the death of over 55 million people, of which about 35 million were civilians, including through planned genocide. The First World War brought the military front to the doorsteps of civil life, leading to the death of large numbers of civilians as a direct result of combat. The Second World War then confirmed that civilians were from then on fully a part of war and ideological combat. In the 21st century we are well aware (or should be) that civilians are not only collateral damage but also the targets of military and ideological attacks.

The Civilians in Wartime Memorial (Mémorial des Civils de la Guerre), a museum opened in 2016 in the small town of Falaise, examines of the effect of war on civilian populations. The museum naturally takes wartime Normandy as its prime example while also speaking of civilian victims of other conflicts around the world.

Falaise is a fitting location for this museum since it was in this area that the Battle of Normandy, which began with D-Day, June 6, 1944, ended with the defeat of the German tank division on August 22 in what is known as the Falaise (or Falais-Chambois) Pocket. The town itself, its center heavily damaged, was liberated by Canadian troops on August 17, 1944. It was in Falaise, I’ve been told, that a woman lost her 2-year-old son to bombardments on the day that she gave birth to a daughter.

As Americans, with our own civilians largely out of harm’s way during WWII, we generally focus on the war’s military aspects and on the lives and actions of soldiers and the military hierarchy. As the war recedes in time we further focus the war’s military aspects on the Normandy D-Day Landing and the ensuing several days, sometimes forgetting that a full 11 months of war in Europe was to follow, that harsh battle continued in the Pacific and perhaps even our military presence overseas for much of the past 70 years. Americans now often speak of the Beaches of Normandy as the shining example of our role in securing freedom around the world and hold it up as the best image we have of ourselves in our expeditions overseas.

It takes nothing away from America’s role in the Liberation of Europe to recognize that the effect that WWII and other wars had—and continue to have—on civilian populations, including through our own military actions. As travelers to Normandy remember, commemorate and visit the sites and scenes of D-Day and the early phases of the Invasion of Normandy, those with time to do so (for Falaise is off the beaten path for most itineraries) might also pay a visit to Falaise’s museum for an understanding of how civilian population lived and died during the war.

The Falaise museum is managed by the Memorial de Caen, the region’s major war museum—or museum of peace, as they would have it. In presenting the new museum, Stéphane Grimaldi, director of the Memorial de Caen, has written “The singularity of the Second World War is that it annihilated more civilians than soldiers. It’s estimated that 35 million civilians died – including 15 million Chinese, 8 million Russians, more than 5 million Poles, 3 million Germans. To these terrifying numbers one must add about 100 million wounded and maimed, ‘collateral’ victims of bombardments, exodus, combat and deprivations.”

While devoting major to civilian life and death in Normandy during the war, the vocation of Falaise’s museum is not to tell only a local story but to remind visitors of the difficulties and concerns of civilians during wartime everywhere.

With explanatory panels in French and in English, the visit is designed to begin at the third floor with displays about military occupation by foreign forces. The second floor then speaks of the Liberation. The museum occupies a former court building from the reconstruction period that followed the war. A remnant of the house (of a doctor and former mayor) destroyed during the war on the site is partially uncovered in the basement. While peering into that remnant one hears the sound of bombs dropping. Those bombs room comes at the end of the visit so as to leave the visitor with a reminder of the risk to all civilians in times of military conflict, though it can in fact be visited first, a foreshadow of things to come.

The Route from Caen to Falaise

The route south from Caen to Falaise, 23 miles (37 km), passes two cemeteries related to the Battle of Falaise and the Falaise Pocket. The first, coming from Caen, is the Canadian Military Cemetery at Bretteville-sur-Laize. Falaise, as noted earlier, was liberated from the German occupation by Canadian troops on Aug. 17, 1944. Beyond the Canadian Cemetery is the Polish Military Cemetery at Urville. Most of its 615 tombs there belong to soldiers and officers of the First Polish Tank Division under General Maczek, which was attached to the First Canadian Army. The Mémorial de Montormel, a museum and monument dedicated to the final days of the Battle of Normandy, is a 40-minute drive east of Falaise.

William the Conqueror and Falaise Castle

Falaise itself, much destroyed during the Battle of Normandy, is a handsome example of post-war reconstruction that even on an empty morning has a peaceable air of well-being to it. The tourist office is across the street from the museum. Between the two is Town Hall, an 18th-century survivor of the war. All three of these structures face Place Guillaume le Conquérant, William the Conqueror Square. William was born in Falaise in 1028. He would become Duke of Normandy then also King of England following his conquest of the cross-channel kingdom in 1066. He died in 1087 and is buried in the Abbaye-aux-Hommes in Caen.

William’s Castle, modified by his descendants and then the kings of France, stands several hundred yards away. The Civilians in Wartime Memorial. The royal castle is visible from the museum’s top floor.

The castle ramparts have recently been reconstructed. A previous reconstruction/creation at the entrance to the castle looks so ridiculously out of place that it nearly dissuaded this visitor from wanting to enter. But once inside the remnants of the castle inform visitors about the itinerant court of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries through three parts: that of William’s son, with a residential dungeon (the beginning of the development of dungeon palaces), that of his grandson, then that of the king of France after 1204, when Normandy fell within the crown of France. Tablets enable visitors to see rooms as they might have appeared during those eras.

A brief walk about the center of town may include a visit to Saint Gervais Church.

The restaurant O Saveurs, 38 rue Georges Clemenceau, is a nice option for a well-prepared meal.

For opening times and other information see the following websites:

Mémorial des Civils de la Guerre (Civilians in Wartime Memorial), 12 Place Guillaume le Conquérant, 14700 Falaise.
Falaise Tourist Office, 5 Place Guillaume le Conquérant, 14700 Falaise.
Falaise Castle, Château Guillaume le Conquérant.
Mémorial de Montormel (Montormel Memorial), Les Hayettes, 61160 Montormel.
Calvados Tourist Board. Calvados is the name of the department (sub-region) in Normandy which includes Falaise, Caen, four of the five Landing Beaches, Caen, Deauville, Honfleur, etc. The fifth Landing Beach, Utah, is located in Manche.
Normandy Tourist Board. Information about the broader region.

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut

See other articles about Normandy on France Revisited.

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For 30 minutes Schlossberg, his co-host Christine Tibbetts and Kraut discussed American war memories in France.

They spoke the Invasion of Normandy and questions about to the best way to visit the Normandy war sights. How long should a traveler devote to visiting the Landing Zone? Can travelers do it on their own or is it preferable to have a guide? How and why to travel as a family.

You can listen to the show in podcast here. (A technical glitch caused the guest to disappear for a few seconds at the start of the phone interview, but the conversation was soon underway.)

Dan Schlossberg,  who lives in New Jersey, is a multiple award-winning journalist (broadcast and paper) especially known for his work in travel and baseball.

Chistine Tibbetts,  who lives in Georgia, has been reporting far and wide for over 40 years.

Travel Itch is an internet radio program that can be heard live on Thursdays from 8 to 8:30pm East Coast Time.

The post D-Day and American War Memories in France: A Travel Conversation appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.