We are thinking of doing the D-Day beaches on our own. We only have 1/2 a day to spend on it. The other half will be visiting Cherbourg. Does anyone know where we could get good maps showing the route that some of the tours take...we don%26#39;t need to do all the museums and monuments or visit every beach. So we want to design our own little drive through tour. We will be driving from Crepon in the morning to Cherbourg and on the return want to go throught the D-Day area before returning to Crepon for the Evening. We will visit Bayeaux the next morning before heading out for MSM. Any advice would be much appreciated.
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www.viamichelin.com
www.mappy.com
maps.google.com
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Crepon is well situated for visiting any of the beaches, but it is a good couple of hours drive to Cherbourg - so it will not leave you much time for D-Day visiting I suspect.
If nothing else, I%26#39;d definitely suggest that you drive along the %26#39;coast road%26#39; from Grandcamp Maisy to Arromanches, you can stop in some places and look out over the beaches (you will be on Utah and Omaha there, and at Arromanches, park up and go down to the seafront to see the Mulberry Harbour, go in to the little museum if it is open, and walk up onto the hill to the 360%26#39; Cinema. This cinema gives an excellent show of the WW11 happenings in the area. If you are too late to get in to the cinema, it is still worth walking up that hill, which gives fantastic views along the coast.
http://www.arromanches360.com/eng/index.php
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Do you have a specific reason for wanting to visit Cherbourg? It%26#39;s really just a very ordinary town with a ferry port. There%26#39;s not a lot there to see and it is going to take you about 90 minutes to get there, not leaving much time to see the D-Day beaches. If I were you I would just meander along the coast as far as St Mere Eglise and Utah beach and spend a bit of time in Bayeux, because your second day is going to be fairly rushed as well if you intend to do Bayeux and MSM in one day.
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We have been visiting the beaches over the years and use a booklet from the tourist office which breaks down the landing sites and subsequent assaults into driving tours with titles such as %26quot;Le Choc%26quot; and %26quot;Objectif - un port%26quot;. On the ground, these routes are well signposted and there are tall blue pillars at the main sites giving a brief description of events.
Agree with Thiaumerie%26#39;s comment about Cherboug, I wouldn%26#39;t go further north than the German batteries to the north east of St Mere Eglise.
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Thank you all so much for all the really good advice. Arromanche 360 sounds great. Iv%26#39;e been in the Disney 360%26#39;s and they are spectacular. So it sounds like we could skip Cherbourg? The self tour is the way we like to go because we move right along and a organized tour would be a snails pace for us. Now all I need is a few quiet, inexpensive, restaurants that the local people dine at and I have a very good itinerary for our first 2 1/2 days.
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Tiaumarie,
When we leave Crepon we will be heading for Mont. Ste. Michel. In your opinion would it be better to take the high speed road all the way or is it more enjoyable to wander along on some of the other slower roads and go to St-Lo and over to Coutances and down along the coast? B%26amp;B%26#39;s don%26#39;t like you to arrive much before late afternoon and we do not want to go into Mont. Ste. Michel untill the tour bus leave. What do you Think?
Judy
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Saint-Lo was 98% flattened during the war so it is pretty much a modern, unimpressive town (although we love it, it%26#39;s our local town!) and probably not worth visiting unless it%26#39;s on a Saturday, they have a fantastic market. Coutances is nice and the coast road is lovely. Avranches is a nice town but from there I would get on the main road to MSM rather than taking the coast road as it isn%26#39;t very inspiring.
Port-en-Bessin is a nice fishing port with plenty of good restaurants. There are lots of nice places in Bayeux to eat but contrary to popular myth, not a lot of %26quot;local people%26quot; eat out on a regular basis (Normandy is quite a poor region) - if you do see French people in restaurants they are most likely to be tourists from other regions, much the same as yourselves.
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If you time it right, the American Cemetary have guided tours in English at 3pm every afternoon. Not sure how long it takes, even if you dipped out, it would be worth while.
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They also play Taps and lower the Stars and Stripes at 4.30 and if you know how, want to, and ask, they will let you fold the flag with them.
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Thats interesting, thanks for that Thiaumerie, something else to add to my information pack!
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