Normandy, France
From Amsterdam yesterday, to Normandy today. There really can't be two greater emotional extremes.
I'm not going to pretend to be a historian here. In fact, if there's anything I learned, it's about how little I knew about D-Day. The amount of planning, the execution, the aftermath, and the cost; each of those things are worth hours of research.
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| Remnants of D Day are still out in the water. |
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| Omaha Beach Monument |
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There's a general heavy feeling that permeates the air here.
After stopping at Omaha Beach, we went into a D Day museum for a while where they shows us films and we got to look a moving scale models of the many phases of the D Day project.
They had to build an a port in one day while being attacked! Do you have any idea how crazy that is? Having worked on a ship now for some time, I understand that this idea was something that seemed impossible, but it was done.
The British took their derelict ships, and purposely sunk them in a line to create a breakwater. After that special floating bridges were connected and then positioned between ship and shore so that the caissons could roll right off the water and onto the beach. Here is one of those bridges:
We can only have the guests in a heavy mood for so long, after all it is vacation for most of them. Se, we take a break from D-Day and go to a restaurant.
It was kind of incredible.
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| Yum. |
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| Freaking Yum. |
And how is this for an amazing use of mirrors?
Break time over, on to the American Cemetery.
It was good to be back on American soil, even if we were surrounded by France.
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On the walls of the monument, you can see the outlines of the many campaigns that were put into action before, on, and after D Day.
I trust that nothing further will require any explanation.
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| Panorama, click. |
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