Cal and VA | Adventures

We got lost on the way from Dinard to the Normandy beaches, giving us a great view of the Normandy countryside. Only after seeing the terrain - rolling hills and hedgerows can you understand how difficult combat was after D-day. As we were traveling a small country road, we went past a small house flying the US Flag nearby being a significant battlefield. Very moving. We stopped at Pointe du Hoc, which juts out into the sea, allowing the Germans a commanding view up the Omaha beaches. It is where the 2nd Ranger Battalion scaled the 100-foot cliffs to silence a battery of guns. The guns had been moved, but the Rangers found and destroyed them anyway. Looking down to the beaches, it is hard to imagine climbing the cliffs under fire with the enemy simply dropping grenades off the top. The area was left much as it was in 1944 with the pill boxes and trenches.

The next stop was the American Cemetery behind Omaha Beach. The 173 acres is one of fourteen permanent American WWII cemeteries constructed on foreign soil. Some 9,386 service men and women are buried here including three Medal of Honor recipients.

The group then went to a British D-day museum located in a small town where the Allies created a port. You can still see the huge concrete barriers used to form an artificial harbor for the Allies to unload troops and equipment. After a museum tour we had lunch outside in a sidewalk cafe then headed for Paris.

Outside the restaurant for dinner was the Tour St-Jacques an ornate 170-foot stump tower belonging to a 16th century church destroyed in 1797.

After dinner we went to the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur with its white domes. Built in 1876 on the site of the bloodily vanquished Commune de Paris. The hill is so steep that there is a small cable car to take you from the level, where this picture was taken, to the church level.

This is a picture at dusk of the Paris skyline from the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur. The church occupies the highest point on the north side of Paris.

Near the church is the lively neighborhood of Upper Montmartre it is here that painters Toulouse-Latrec, Pacasso, and Matisse enjoyed the image of the free thinking hilltop. This is a picture of one of the many cabarets on the hill.

A parting picture on our last evening in Paris - this is Angelique our tour guide in front of the cafe where Toulouse-Latrec used to hang out.

After Montmartre we took the subway to the Arc de Triomphe and strolled the Champs-Elysees for several miles to the Louvre. It was a beautiful night and the night-life was hopping.