D-Day and D-Eppe

We woke at my mate's idyllic pad in the middle of the countryside, slow rise, and, armed with lots of stinky cheese from the market, we hit the road. This time, direction: D-Day beaches.

Getting up north was lovely. The sun warmed up our Smiles and it even got to the point where I had to chuck on a pair of shorts. (My pins were delighted to see the light of day after three weeks of thermal leggings!!) We stopped on the way up and emptied one of the jerry cans into the tank and took a call from Fantastic Uncle Steve. Steve explained that he went to the D-Day landings with my dad and he fondly remembered the paratrooper hanging from the cathedral. I knew exactly the spot so we headed straight to Sainte Mere Eglise.

The sun carried on shining all morning and when we got to our destination there was a coachload of adolescents milling about. School trip. Joyful. We plonked down in a bar, grabbed a coffee (ahem - beer!), soaked up the sun and unwinded (unwound?).

Not a sky in the cloud...

The small lanes and roads around the D-day beaches  are just like the films you may have seen that depict World War II. You can almost imagine the tanks charging along them and we'd go past a memorial or two as the road opened up. Often there'd be tanks/war vehicles. It all felt a little bit too close to home what with the current climate and the journey that had literally taken us to that point.

Not the best pic but you get the idea, with the villages spanning level in the distance

We made our way to Utah beach and stopped for a bite to eat. Anf suggested we hit up a British beach and we made our way to Gold.

Anf seemed a little disgruntled that we were driving away from the beach when we started following the signs to the British memorial but we were both was pretty blown away when we got there. Clearly, there's a lot of work that's gone into putting this homage together - and it was recently marked by Treez May. No wonder it didn't look all that familiar to me (that said - I often went to Omaha when I was ever showing visitors around my hood!).

There were names of those deceased during the fighting listed by date of death, one-by-one, with their ranking and their age. Both sides of the columns. And there were columns everywhere. So so close to home with Ukraine and I don't think I saw anyone past the age of 42. The average age must have been around 24. 

Heartbreaking.

The day got late and we'd made the decision to get a boat from Dieppe early the next morning so we headed east, stopping off at Honfleur on the way for a savoury crepe (galette) - the last delicacy I wanted to share with Anf.

We got to the port late (or early, depending which way you look at it - around 1am), parked up in the queue to board and got our heads down. Hometime tomorrow.