Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Brad & Mark's September Trip to France

Brecourt Manor, inland from Utah Beach. This is where Easy Company, 506 PIR (see Band of Brothers) destroyed the four artilley pieces firing on Utah Beach.

Egyptian antiquities in the Louvre Museum, Paris.


The Bastille monument, Paris (see French Revolution).

Enjoying a rare Kilkenny beer in Paris.

A horse (and a handsome man) with a height problem......

View from Mont Saint-Michel.

Mont Saint-Michel - a rocky island in which the Franks
began building upon in the 6th century.

La Cambe German Cemetery. Contains more than
21,000 German soldiers.

Huge German bunker on Utah Beach.

.50cal concrete pillboxes along Utah.

Utah Beach looking east toward Sainte-Marie du Mont.

The public toilettes in St. Mere Eglise were very public.

St. Mere Eglise - town taken by 82nd Airborne June, 6 1944. Yes,
that is a replica of parachutist John Steele stuck on the church.

La Fiere bridge.
Point du Hoc on Omaha Beach. This is where the Rangers scaled the cliffs. The craters were created by Allied aerial and naval bombardment.

All of the gravesites face west, toward the US.

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial at Omaha Beach in Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer (see cemetery scenes in Saving Private Ryan). Contains ~10,000 American servicemen, including Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (the only general officer to come ashore during the invasion) and two of the Niland brothers (the Saving Pvt. Ryan brothers were loosely based on the Niland brothers).
I had some fantastic mussels in the fishing village
of Pays du Bassin (yes, it was a little bit chilly).

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