I got the blessing of the Francophile chief to write about the region of France I love most of all, and off I went. I’ve done this route many times before, but I never kept photos, never measured distances, and most important, as you’ll soon see, I wasn’t up to date. We set out in late October, a team of three: Quartermaster Sergeant Dolly, Corporal Karen, and the buck private, me.
Dolly was chosen from among our seven dogs as a tribute to our leader Zvi. She’s a Maltese, just like him. Karen was chosen because I’m not allowed to drive her Land Rover. I was chosen because I’m the one doing the choosing.
We did the route in three days, including the trip from our home, the château at Porte des Roches, halfway between Nantes and Rennes, and back again. You can do it from Paris or from Nantes, one of the airports you’ll likely land at, in the same amount of time. But you could easily stretch it to four, five, six, or even seven days, and still not see everything.
As promised: we’ll find a kiss that disappeared, hum the old tune “Kalaniot, Kalaniot,” a winged horse will soar above us, bagpipes will carry us along the way, flags will wave in the wind, and, well, We shall pass with flying colours.
This route also works well for families with kids. We saw plenty of them along the way. But I added a special attraction just for them: an amusement park near Caen. Because of the park, I’ll start the route description from Caen. First, though, you need to get there.
The château where I live
If we set aside Marseille and Nice, which are far to the south, you’ll most likely land in Paris or Nantes. From Paris, Caen is closer: 237 km, 2 hours and 30 minutes. But Nantes isn’t much farther: 291 km, 2 hours and 50 minutes. There are two good reasons to choose the Nantes airport. The second reason is that the airline Transavia started running a direct route to Nantes in November, twice a week, on Sundays and Wednesdays. The cost varies, but it’s always less than half of what you’d pay flying to and from Paris.
The first reason is that you can stop after sixty kilometers north of Nantes, with a short detour west, and bring me some warm pitas. The wine’s on me. There’s also bed and breakfast available, in a 12th-century château, at a special rate for Francophiles Anonymous readers.
But you really don’t have to. You’ll get wine either way.
Either way, both options work well. I’ve marked a route from both to Caen:
Our house, in the hamlet of Porte des Roches, is marked with a blue dot to the left of the main N137 road from Nantes to Rennes. Take the exit marked Grand Fougeray, continue west on the D56 for about ten kilometers, cross the Vilaine river, pass the railway tracks, and honk in front of the château’s iron gate. Or just call 0505-211079.
Did we set out? We did.
Festyland Amusement Park
Anyway, we did set out. In the morning, on the N137, we bypassed Rennes and continued north toward Caen. On the ring road around Caen, I noticed on the right what looked like an amusement park full of rides: tube slides, a giant swing, a roller coaster, and more. I checked online, and sure enough, it’s a park called Festyland. Its address: Route de Caumont, 14760 Bretteville-sur-Odon
Here’s its location on the map:
They have a website, including in English: worth checking when it’s open.
The Caen Memorial Museum and the Statue That Couldn’t Survive Feminism
Important: if you look at the map I posted, there’s another marker in the upper right: Memorial de Caen. That’s where I was headed, and I did get there, but I was quite disappointed. I’d been there about three years earlier. It’s a museum dedicated to the horrors of war and the pleasures of peace. In my opinion it was a waste of time, but the place is packed with visitors from all over the world, so I’m probably wrong. Either way, there was one thing I really wanted to go back for. Outside, right in front of the museum, stands a giant statue, about eight meters tall.
Here’s how I remembered it looking:
It’s a replica, of course, of the famous photograph of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on V-J Day, a photo that brought the photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898-1995) worldwide fame:
So, I thought to myself, swallowing hard so I wouldn’t choke, sure, I’m not a sailor, and I never fought the Japanese, but I can still plant a kiss. I’d wait right there at the foot of the giant statue, and surely some nurse would show up delighted by a surprise kiss. Purely for historical documentation, of course. As we got close to the site, I shared the plan with Karen, since the photography duty fell to her. She didn’t seem thrilled with the idea; she said, quite coolly, that she’d be happy to photograph the event, but I should keep in mind that from there I’d be continuing on foot, because there was no way she was putting a sex offender in her Land Rover.
A typical female response to that disappearing breed of male romance. Anyway, when we arrived, the statue wasn’t there. We circled the museum three times, and the statue, like Malta, was simply nowhere to be found. The museum’s management probably realized there’s no room to glorify sexual violence in a place dedicated to peace, Karen suggested, rather acidly. Nonsense, it was probably stolen or sent off for repairs, I replied, but I hurried to check online for “the kiss statue + sexual violence,” and to my surprise, I found that indeed, right after the statue was installed in 2014, as part of the preparations for the 70th anniversary of the victory, French feminist organizations protested to the museum’s management and demanded the disgrace be removed. It glorifies and encourages male sexual violence, they argued.
Well, so that’s why there’s no statue!!! You women have completely lost your minds, I summed up my position to Karen in the face of the victorious female power.
I decided to check again just how foolish these French feminists who got rid of the statue really were. Well, it turned out the story wasn’t quite what I’d imagined. The French feminists did protest, and their outrage grew once they learned that the statue, one of a series of similar works by the sculptor J. Seward Johnson Jr. (1930-2020), was called “Unconditional Surrender,” meaning it wasn’t just sexual violence, there was a sadomasochistic undertone to it too. But the museum’s director, a man, of course, after politely listening to the women’s delegation’s complaints, told them in no uncertain terms not to confuse him: the unconditional surrender was Japan’s, not the kissed woman’s. She, in fact, loved the kiss, and the statue would stay right where it was.
Ah, so why isn’t it there now? Simple: it was only on loan from the USA to France for one year, in honor of the 70th anniversary celebrations of the victory. I stumbled upon it by chance in 2015, and after the anniversary, the statue sailed back to the USA.
Recommended hotels in Caen
If you’d like to stay in Caen, here are a few solid options (written by the Francophile):
Hôtel La Fontaine Caen Centre
Star rating: **
A really affordable hotel located in the center of Caen. It got a very high rating on Booking.com.
Hôtel balladins Caen Mémorial
Star rating: ***
An affordable, solid hotel located about a 15-minute walk from the memorial in Caen.
Ace Hôtel Caen Nord Mémorial
Star rating: ***
Another pleasant hotel not far from the memorial. The best part: it’s pet-friendly, which can really help if you’re traveling with your dog.
Royal Hôtel Caen Centre
Star rating: ****
A four-star hotel in a very central location.
Didn’t find a hotel you like? Feel free to click this link to find more hotels.
Pegasus Bridge and the Anemones
I typed our next destination into Waze: Pegasus Bridge. In its honor, I found myself humming the old song “Kalaniot, Kalaniot” (“Anemones, Anemones”) by Shoshana Damari (1923-2006).
What’s the connection between the anemones and Pegasus Bridge? Before I started researching this article, I didn’t know either. Actually, I’d always been puzzled by the stories claiming that British paratroopers were deeply offended whenever kids in the street sang them this song, and that once the military commander of Tel Aviv even issued a closure order against the “Li-La-Lo” theater, where the song was performed. But while researching, I came across a history of the British 6th Airborne Division, written by the historian R. D. Wilson, and from it I understood that the British soldiers in their red berets were offended because they interpreted the nickname “anemones” given to them as implying that, like the anemone flower, their heads were red and their hearts were black…
So, now that we’ve found the vanishing kiss, let’s move on to the connection between the anemones and the winged horse. A winged horse is known in Greek mythology by the name “Pegasus.” The original Pegasus was the son of the sea god Poseidon and the Gorgon Medusa, and the hero Bellerophon rode him into battle, slaying the monster Chimera and defeating the Amazons, history’s first feminists, in combat. But then the hero got carried away with success and decided to fly up to Olympus. Modest Pegasus refused, threw Bellerophon off his back, but flew up to Olympus himself, where he’s lived peacefully ever since (an Olympian peace, of course), occasionally fathering, in love that’s not exactly platonic, herds of winged horses.
And what’s the connection between this Pegasus and the anemones? That’s simple too. We already said that “anemones” was the mocking nickname given to British paratroopers in Mandatory Palestine because they wore red berets. But the truth is these “paratroopers” weren’t paratroopers at all, even if they might have taken a parachute course at some point. They were soldiers of the British 6th Airborne Division, which traveled by glider. That division’s emblem was Pegasus, the winged horse.
Why exactly was Pegasus chosen as the emblem of the airborne division? Because of his home on Olympus? Because he throws off his riders? Because his soldiers have the stamina of a horse? That’s our question to wonder about, theirs to answer. Actually, maybe ours too, because that same winged horse also appears on the unit insignia and wings badge of my old UAV unit back home, nicknamed “Sky Rider.” The British Mandate is long gone, but their brand of humor stuck around.
So what does all this have to do with today’s article, the British 6th Airborne Division, and Pegasus as its emblem? Simple: the starting point of our tour today is Pegasus Bridge, named that way because soldiers of this division captured it on the night before the main landing, and their emblem still stands today, with entirely justified pride, right in front of the bridge.
The Normandy Landings
A bit of history. On the night before the big landing day, June 6, 23,400 American, British, and Canadian soldiers were parachuted or landed by glider behind German lines, with the goal of seizing key points ahead of the main invasion force.
The eastern end of the landing zone was the Orne River, alongside a canal running parallel to it. The bridges over the river and canal posed a threat, since mobile German reinforcements could use them to attack the landing forces. They were also a vital asset, since Allied troops could use them to advance east and capture the port of Le Havre, whose docks would allow for unloading massive amounts of heavy equipment that was hard to land on a shallow beach. Capturing a deep-water port was such an important mission that, in a few spots along the landing beaches, signs still stand declaring or encouraging “Harbour Now!”
Three gliders towed by Dakota planes took off at eleven at night from England. Over the English Channel, the planes released the gliders, which silently glided toward their target: the Orne bridges. Inside them was a company of the British 6th Airborne Division, commanded by Major John Howard. One glider crashed into barbed wire, the second broke in two inside a pond, and the third, carrying the company commander, landed safely.
The bridges were defended by 50 soldiers from a German infantry division, most of them forced conscripts, French, Polish, and Russian, older, tired, unmotivated, and poorly equipped. Not far away, an elite armored Waffen-SS division was stationed, one that could have significantly reinforced the bridges’ defense, but it wasn’t allowed to move without a direct order from Hitler himself. He was asleep, and no one was permitted to wake him.
The bridges were captured relatively easily. The bridge over the canal is still called “Pegasus Bridge” today, though the original bridge has since moved and now sits in an open-air museum between the canal and the river. The current bridge is an exact replica of the original. The street leading to the museum is called “John Howard Street,” named after the company commander, who was killed later in the war.
The Scottish Piper
We crossed the bridge. Now for the Scottish piper. As John was bracing his men and setting them up to defend the bridge, he heard the sound of approaching bagpipes. The piper was Bill Millin, a Scottish soldier in the 1st Commando Brigade, who served as the personal piper of Lord Lovat, the brigade commander who had just landed on Sword Beach. Aside from his bagpipes, the piper was armed with nothing but a knife, but he wore a kilt that his father had given him before the invasion, the same kilt his father had worn in World War I.
The Scottish vanguard crossed the bridge. The soldiers marched in threes, rifles on their shoulders, with the lord and the piper leading the way. The Germans opened fire, 12 Scots were killed, and the rest understood they were in a battle, not a parade. They broke formation, took their weapons off their shoulders, put on their helmets, and started fighting. Only the bagpipes kept playing as before, with Bill the piper walking upright, advancing alongside the charging troops.
He still stands upright today, in the very spot where he landed, at the eastern end of Sword Beach:
I saluted him. He earned it.
John Howard’s glider rests peacefully in the museum on the street named after him:
The Normandy Landing Beaches
From here on, the coastal road D514 will guide us along all the landing beaches: from Sword to Juno, then to Gold, on to Omaha, and ending at Utah.
The sights are fairly similar all along. There are plenty of American, British, and Canadian flags, not just on memorials but also at the entrances of ordinary houses. I take this as an ongoing expression of gratitude to young people who left their homes in countries that were no longer under threat, and came to a land that was not their own, to free it for people who could not free it themselves. A bit bombastic, I know, but on the landing beaches, the heart takes over.
All along the way, some eighty kilometers of it, on every corner, every intersection, sometimes right in the middle of a street, you will find tanks, cannons, concrete gun emplacements, underwater obstacles, bridging equipment, and other tools that helped bring about victory.
Here are a few samples. (Chief Francophile, don’t you dare filter these out!):
Two of the hundreds of thousands of underwater obstacles
Arromanches-les-Bains
The scene is a bit different in Arromanches-les-Bains. There, parts of the floating harbor still remain in the sea, towed here by the Allies from England across the Channel shortly after the landing, so that relatively heavy equipment and weaponry could be unloaded before a deep-water port could be captured.
In Arromanches, we stayed at the La Marine hotel, right on the waterfront. The room had a sea view (not all of them do, so insist on one facing the water, the price is the same). That matters here, because the tides are remarkable.
Address: Quai du Canada, 14117 Arromanches-les-Bains.
There’s no parking right next to the hotel, and you can’t even drive up to its entrance. But 50 meters away is a large parking lot belonging to the floating harbor museum, so it’s not a big deal. The price, though, is steep: 98 euros a night. There are decent rooms nearby for half that. We wanted the tides, so we paid up. One catch: you can’t eat at the hotel. A meal without wine runs about 100 euros for two. Breakfast is only 12 euros per person, but nothing special. Hearing the sea roar back in after low tide is something you don’t forget. The roar grows louder and louder.
Even the vodka was at low tide:
The times of high and low tide shift, apparently based on the moon’s position. Generally it happens twice a day and twice a night, meaning roughly every six hours. You can check the exact times online for any given day. Click maree.info and you’ll get:
Now, since the nightlife in Arromanches isn’t exactly thrilling, and you’re stuck in your room, there’s no escaping a short historical lecture on the Normandy invasion. I know, you can find one on Google too, but I memorized Stephen Ambrose’s book “D-Day” (564 pages) by heart, and everyone I know has already heard this lecture from me at least three times, so now it’s your turn. A captive audience.
But… if you’d rather skip it, feel free, and move straight on to the next part of the trip.
Recommended Hotels in Arromanches-les-Bains
If you’d like to stay in Arromanches-les-Bains and the hotel Zvi recommended is fully booked, here are a few more options:
Hôtel-Restaurant Le Mulberry
Star rating: **
A two-star hotel that’s inexpensive but well recommended.
Hôtel L’Ideal le Mountbatten
Star rating: ***
A simple, pleasant hotel located not far from the landing beaches, offering rooms at reasonable prices.
Relais du Silence Les Villas d’Arromanches
Star rating: ***
A charming hotel housed in a beautiful 19th-century villa, just a few hundred meters from the landing beaches.
If you still haven’t found a hotel you like in Arromanches, I recommend clicking the following link for more hotels and apartments in the area.
The Bayeux Tapestry
Good morning, Arromanches! Good morning to everyone who walked through the landing with me!
And good morning to those who skipped the article 🙂
Today we took a short break from the landing beaches and headed inland, to Bayeux. Say “Bayeux,” and you’ve said “the Bayeux Tapestry.”
Type Bayeux into your GPS, and among the options you’ll see Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux. That’s the museum we headed to.
We’ll get to the tapestry in a moment, but first, a few practical tips. It’s easy to miss the museum entrance, because even though the GPS announces “you have arrived,” you won’t see any destination or museum. It is indeed on the road, but a narrow alley leads to the entrance, and there’s no parking right next to it. You need to keep going down the street until you reach the enormous cathedral, which you can’t miss. Turn right there, and after about a hundred meters you’ll find parking lots on your left.
Keep in mind that, as in most parking lots in France, payment is made at automatic machines, some of which, for some reason, require your license plate number. The most efficient approach is to keep a photo of your plate on your phone, otherwise you’ll have to stop mid-payment and go back to the car to check the number. The machine does have an English menu, but you can always get help from locals.
Back to the tapestry. It’s an embroidered tapestry about 70 meters long and roughly half a meter wide. It was embroidered in England, shortly after William the Conqueror’s conquest of the country. It depicts scenes telling the events that led to the Norman landing in England, culminating in the Battle of Hastings in 1066 AD.
It’s commonly called “the first comic strip,” because the images really are arranged along a timeline, just like a comic.
The images are vividly and finely drawn, and they offer a wealth of information about everyday life in the Middle Ages.
Be sure to pick up an audio guide. Before you even get to the museum, you can watch an animation of the tapestry in the video below:
From there, on to the cathedral. I know, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. But this one is genuinely impressive, and since you’ve already paid for parking, why not go in?
The stained glass, of course, is wonderful.
Further down the street where you parked, about two hundred meters away, there’s a small shop selling antiques, secondhand items, and World War II memorabilia, each accompanied by certificates of authenticity:
Before leaving Bayeux, it’s worth stopping at the cemetery dedicated to the British soldiers who fell during and shortly after the invasion.
The site holds 4,651 graves, of which 4,146 belong to soldiers of the British Empire’s forces, and 501 to enemy soldiers.
The inscription on the memorial at the site is striking: it bears the names of 1,801 soldiers who fell in France before the end of August 1944, whose burial places remain unknown.
The inscription on the top stone slab reads:
NOS A GULIELMO VICTI VICTORIS PATRIAM LIBERAVIMUS
Translation: “We, once conquered by William, have now liberated the conqueror’s homeland.”
Isn’t that moving? It moved me, that’s for sure.
Back to the Landing Beaches: the Village of Longues-sur-mer
We headed to a German gun battery, the only one that survived completely intact, its cannons still sitting inside the reinforced concrete bunkers, which no bombing ever managed to even scratch.
It’s located near the village of Longues-sur-mer, and if you type that into your GPS, you’ll also immediately get Batterie de Longues-sur-mer, which is exactly this battery.
The sight is impressive:
There are four guns, originally naval cannons, 152mm in diameter, each in its own bunker, about a hundred meters apart, with a forward observation post on the cliff from which the guns could be aimed, though I’m sure they had pre-set coordinates ready. The battery, by the way, was completed just a few weeks before the landing. You can go inside the bunkers and get a sense of their sheer strength. The opening at the back wasn’t just for the gun crew to enter and exit, but also to vent the blast of the firing outward.
Because of the guns’ long range, they posed a threat to both Gold Beach and Omaha Beach.
What actually happened was that the guns themselves were never hit, but the heavy shelling broke the spirit of the crews, and although they kept firing occasionally, they never caused any real damage, until the site was captured by the British the following day.
Port-en-Bessin-Huppain
It had been a long day, time to rest.
A short drive, about five kilometers, to the village of Port-en-Bessin-Huppain.
Along the way, by the way, there are plenty of signs pointing to small cider houses, where they sell local products: various kinds of cider, alcoholic and non-alcoholic, and also Calvados.
We stopped at one, where the owner was busy filling bottles with a machine. He didn’t look too thrilled:
Dolly, left waiting in the car, didn’t look too pleased either:
What can you do. Not everyone’s happy today. I’m happy.
Port-en-Bessin has plenty of hotels. Head down to the small harbor, and you’ll find several hotels right across from the pier. We picked one with the same name as the place we stayed the night before, La Marine. It’s probably a chain, but this one is cheaper: 60 euros a night. It sits right on the quay. Across from it, right on the pier, there’s a shed where they sell fish that supposedly just came in from the sea. High demand.
The man on the left shucks oysters right there and hands them to the buyers.
Good night, no lecture this evening.
***
Omaha Beach
Good morning, Port-en-Bessin!!!
Tuesday of the tour, and for us this is the last day.
Today is dedicated to Omaha Beach. A drive of about 10 kilometers, and we’re at the American cemetery. From there to the beach, and from there to the museum.
You should not miss the cemetery. It’s an extremely moving experience. Words won’t do it justice here. You have to be there.
After the cemetery I went down to the beach itself. Honestly, there isn’t much to see there. People wander around on a sandy beach at low tide. Maybe it’s the sheer ordinariness of the scene that makes the impression. Against photos showing the place at the moment of the landing, people now stroll along leisurely.
There is, however, also a monument in memory of the fallen of the 1st Infantry Division:
This division is known as “The Big Red One,” but its nickname is “The Bloody First”…
Its motto is engraved on the monument: “No mission too difficult, no sacrifice too great. Duty first!”
I saluted them too, of course.
There’s a museum dedicated to the landing here. I marked it on the map. I didn’t go in, but I walked around a bit among the equipment displayed outside. Nothing especially different. If you go in, let me know. From here we continued to a place that’s technically part of Omaha Beach, but with a story all its own: Pointe du Hoc.
Pointe du Hoc
At Pointe du Hoc there was a German gun battery with 155mm cannons that had a range of 25 kilometers. The battery sat atop a cliff 40 meters above the beach.
Capturing and neutralizing the battery was considered essential by the planners of the landing. Two Ranger battalions were assigned to the task. In practice, only one battalion made it up the cliff, using ropes fired up by rockets that caught on the clifftop. They also had extending ladders, borrowed from the London fire brigade, mounted on amphibious trucks, but one of the trucks sank and the other three got stuck sliding around on the muddy beach and couldn’t get close to the cliff. Eventually, one managed to get close enough.
Sergeant William Stivison climbed to the top of the ladder with a machine gun. The truck kept sliding, the ladder swung back and forth 45 degrees in every direction, and William would wait until the swing brought him level with the cliff top, fire a burst, and wait for it to come around again. When the Rangers finally reached the top, they were stunned by the view. It’s still stunning today.
Hundreds of craters are scattered over an area of one square kilometer. They measure up to 10 meters across, and even today, 74 years later, they’re still about two meters deep or more. They sit right next to each other. This is the result of the naval bombardment meant to soften up the defenses. And what’s equally astonishing is that among the craters, the gun bunkers still stand, barely scratched.
One especially striking feature is the forward command post, right on the edge of the cliff. You can climb up to its roof. You can also go inside the bunkers. There’s also a small visitor center on site, which I didn’t go into.
Sadly, there’s no avoiding the fact that the heroic operation turned out to be unnecessary. The guns had been moved out of the position and, as far as I understand, were never actually used. The Rangers found them 500 meters away and blew up their barrels with grenades.
Sainte-Mère-Église
From here we continue on to Sainte-Mère-Église. As you’ll see on the map, Utah Beach is along the way. I didn’t go down to it, for lack of time. If you do, let me know. Along the road there are plenty of museums, flags, and everything we’ve already seen. Most of the route runs along a highway, the N13, so despite the relatively large distance, it’s a drive of half an hour at most.
In 1944 the village had nothing special about it, but the N13 road ran right alongside it, which made capturing it essential, in order to block German reinforcements from reaching the landing beaches from the Cherbourg area. Two American airborne divisions, the 82nd and the 101st, were dropped on either side of the N13 to seize it. The drop went very badly. The paratroopers scattered over a wide area, got mixed up with one another, and some landed right in German positions and were taken prisoner. It was total chaos. But the village was captured in the end.
None of this has anything to do with why the village became famous. Its fame comes from the film “The Longest Day,” which has a gripping scene of a paratrooper whose chute gets caught on the church steeple in the center of the village. He’s left hanging there, playing dead, his ears ringing from the church bells, which had been summoning the villagers to put out a fire in the village. After the war, the villagers wasted no time hanging a paratrooper dummy from the steeple, and they’ve been making a living off it ever since: cafés, souvenir shops, restaurants. A nice little tradition overall, and harmless enough.
Here, in Sainte-Mère-Église, our tour of the landing beaches comes to an end.
We set off from here on our way back home. From here, you also have the option to continue on to Mont-Saint-Michel.
I’m sure the place needs no introduction to any of you, so there’s no point going into it here.
Thank you to everyone who came along with me this far. See you in the next article.
Danny Ashkenazi
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