Mike's Travel Snaps

Following the day in Paris, we headed west to Normandy to visit the D-Day locations. Our first destination was St. Laurent Sur Mer, where Omaha Beach is located. Omaha Beach was one of the two primary landing points for U.S. forces during the invasion of Normandy (find a good overview of the Omaha landing here). It's estimated that 1,000 men died on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944 (with more than 10,000 from the U.S., U.K., and Canada dying during the overall landing).

map (c) 2001 Maporama, www.maporama.com

But when our car came in sight of the ocean along the D517 road, and the beach came in sight on May 6, 2002, what was most striking to me was that Omaha Beach is now just a beach. The late afternoon sun glinted on the cold surf rolling in, and there were a family playing with their dog along the dunes. Except for the tall monument commemorating the fateful day almost 60 years ago, it could be any beach, anywhere else in the world.

We knew there were hotel accomodations in the immediate vicinity of Omaha Beach, but when we found La Sapiniere it was too good to be true. It's a nice little hotel right on Omaha Beach (in Jersey Shore terms, it would be like a hotel located right on the landward side of Ocean Avenue).

On a completely unrelated note, another enjoyable experience was watching an episode of The Simpsons in German. Like watching the show in Spanish in the U.S. with the SAP channel, most of the redubbed character voices had little resemblance to the originals. Except German Lisa--she had a fairly similar voice (kudos to actress Sabine Bohlmann, who apparently also does the voice for Kenny on the German South Park).

For further reading about D-Day, follow these links:

• a piece from The Atlantic Monthly
  
• "Omaha Beachhead," an army publication
  
• "Utah Beach to Cherbourg," another army publication
  
• A few stories of individuals who landed on Omaha Beach
  
• Another first-person account (this gentleman is from Utica, NY)