April 2024: As part of a 3 weeklong baby bonding trip across Europe and Morocco, my family and traveled to the Normandy region of France for 3 days from Paris. We rented a car in Paris and the morning after I spent the first night of our trip in the illegal Paris catacombs, we set off on the 3-hour drive to our stop for the night at Mont Saint Michele, a scenic tidal island featuring a 1000-year-old Abby and medieval village rising up from its center. The next day on our way back to Paris, we stopped to visit the World War II invasion beaches around Normandy-Omaha Beach and Pointe du Hoc.
Normandy Region
We were tired and jet lagged but we really wanted to see Mont Saint Michele, a 1000-year-old medieval village and abbey perched on top pf a tidal island, which is arguably the most beautiful historical site in France. The island is so beautiful that even the nazis during World War II when they occupied France turned it into a tourist attraction for other Germans. At times of the day the tide rises making it only possible to reach the island via an elevated roadway that only a tourist bus and not private vehicles is allowed to use to lower vehicle congestion. On certain dates of the year the tide rises high enough even to submerge the roadway completely cutting off the island from the roadway. When the tide recedes, a deadly trap is set for unsuspecting visitors to the island. The thick, wet tidal sand becomes quicksand and has killed people walking alone. Once trapped they are unable to get out of the quicksand before the tide rises and drowns them. Mont Saint Michele is popular with tourists and is best visited during the shoulder season like April. But the downside of visiting in April is it was freezing cold, and the wind was brutal. But we didn’t have crowds and that made visiting the island magical, especially at night when we walked around the island by ourselves.
Initially we were going to stay on the island but when we realized that we would have to haul all of our suitcases up a hill across cobble stone streets to our hotel, we decided it would be better to stay on the mainland in one of the easily accessible tourist hotels. The hotel was sterile and didn’t have the historical appeal that staying on the island would have had but when traveling with baby certain sacrifices need to me made. Once at our hotel we dropped off our bags and took the tourist bus to the island to have dinner at a restaurant overlooking the bay. I had oysters that came from the local bay. Unfortunately, by the time we started up towards the abbey at the top of the hill, we were too late, and the abbey was closed. But we did have a great time exploring and wandering the dark alleys and smaller cathedrals. The island still possesses a sacred feel to it and for this reason thousands of pilgrims are attracted to the island every year and walk barefoot between the cathedrals to the abbey. We came across one group of pilgrims angelically singing hymns. To avoid disrupting them we sat back and listened to their enchanting music. Heading back on the tourist bus at night was difficult. The freezing wind lashed at us, and we had to walk quite a distance in the exposed roadway from the island before reaching the bus pick up location. This caused a considerable amount of concern for Indie , and we were worried she might become sick.
Nightime exploring at one of the cathedrals on the island that remained open. Pilgrims singing angelic hymns in the background
I am fascinated by all things World War II, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to visit the invasion beaches of Normandy. These were the beaches where thousands of American and allied troops first landed in Europe and gave their lives to turn the tide of the war against the nazis. To me these beaches represent a strong sense of American patriotism and sacrifice. I really wanted not only to visit them, see and experience them with my own eyes, I wanted to do so with my family and my daughter. My vision of what I hoped for of course was completely different than expected. We were exhausted, the drive was long, the weather cold with bouts of freezing rain and fierce wind off of the ocean, which made it hard to appreciate these historical places. But we did our best and we were still able to see Omaha Beach and Pointe du Hoc before returning to Paris on a very long drive.
Point do Hoc a fortified cliffside with many bunkers and large guns that overlooked the beaches of Normandy was a key site needed to be defeated by the allies to ensure the success of the beach landings in the area. The Nazis were so well fortified that the mission to scale the cliffs by American special forces was practically a suicide mission. In the end the Nazis were defeated in one of the most heroic battles of the war but at a great cost. Today many nazi bunkers are well preserved and can be visited. The whole cliffside is still pock marked with bomb craters. We attempted to walk around Point du Hoc but it was just too cold to enjoy it.
Paula and Indie in front of one of the German Bunkers of Pointe du Hoc
The region of Normandy was beautiful, and we drove down a small country road crossing small villages with chateaus and old stone churches. There was so much war history in this region and places of interest that I ended up feeling terrible for not allocating enough time to properly explore it. But there was one place we had to visit, and it was Omaha Beach. Omaha beach was the scene of the bloodiest fighting and where the most Americans died-2000. The battle was so fierce that during the invasion the water was said to be colored red with blood. Even today 4 percent of the sand in Omaha beach is made up of shrapnel from the war.
We stopped to have lunch at a cafe overlooking the beach and we briefly walked along the beach. There were still bunkers in the cliffs and the beach was far more desolate than I expected. To me Omaha Beach was like visiting a graveyard because so many men met their end here. I wanted to dip my daughter’s feet into the water and take a photo so that someday she could someday appreciate what these great men sacrificed for her freedom, but it was too cold and windy, and my idea didn’t happen sadly.
Omaha Beach-Paula and Indie
Driving across France had it challenges too, especially during rush hour in Paris. many of the drivers were aggressive and impatient. Fueling stations were less common along the highway than I expected, and this was a problem when I needed to find fuel with 100 miles left in the tank and multiple un-manned stations, I visited did not dispense fuel. But we figured it out in the end and made it back to our cheap airport hotel in Paris Orly before setting off on our early morning flight the next day to Morocco.