Normandy is the part of France I’ve traveled in the most, because some former in-laws have a house there. Visiting those beaches is truly sobering, not least because many of the German bunkers remain in place. It’s easy to see what a shooting gallery the Allies were entering upon landing, and hard to imagine yourself surviving in their b…
Normandy is the part of France I’ve traveled in the most, because some former in-laws have a house there. Visiting those beaches is truly sobering, not least because many of the German bunkers remain in place. It’s easy to see what a shooting gallery the Allies were entering upon landing, and hard to imagine yourself surviving in their boots.
What those visits and SPR remind me also is what the countryside must have been like for the French at the time. I have a hard time driving around Normandy and not wondering if that farmhouse or that one or that church once housed the German invaders. It’s sobering too to visit Caen and realize that 70% of that city was destroyed during the Battle of Normandy. Americans sacrificed plenty in WWII, but visit Normandy and it beggars the mind what France and the rest of Europe endured.
I don’t know if you visited the walled city of Saint-Malo in Brittany on your trip -- it’s not too far a drive from Mont-Saint-Michel -- but that’s another place that was almost totally destroyed at the end of the war of Europe. I don’t know if there’s ever been a movie about that, but it’s made vivid in the Pulitzer-winning novel All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
God I really wish I could have gone to Saint-Malo, but we only had a few days total in Normandy and our agenda was packed: a night in Honfleur, two in Bayeux (D-Day tour, the tapestry, etc.) and one near Mont-St.-Michel. Anyway, the D-Day tour is really something, and I was grateful to have a guide who had a lot of knowledge and also understood and respected the gravity of it.
I should really finally read All the Light We Cannot See, but boy howdy that's a long one.
I can’t argue with that itinerary. Honfleur is gorgeous -- hope you had some mussels! I also hope you tasted a bit of calvados somewhere along the way.
I can’t give All the Light We Cannot See a 100% enthusiastic recommendation. Doerr’s writing is way too florid for my taste, and I think the novel would have been better at two thirds the length. But he certainly does not stint when it comes to immersing you in the bombing of Saint-Malo.
Normandy is the part of France I’ve traveled in the most, because some former in-laws have a house there. Visiting those beaches is truly sobering, not least because many of the German bunkers remain in place. It’s easy to see what a shooting gallery the Allies were entering upon landing, and hard to imagine yourself surviving in their boots.
What those visits and SPR remind me also is what the countryside must have been like for the French at the time. I have a hard time driving around Normandy and not wondering if that farmhouse or that one or that church once housed the German invaders. It’s sobering too to visit Caen and realize that 70% of that city was destroyed during the Battle of Normandy. Americans sacrificed plenty in WWII, but visit Normandy and it beggars the mind what France and the rest of Europe endured.
I don’t know if you visited the walled city of Saint-Malo in Brittany on your trip -- it’s not too far a drive from Mont-Saint-Michel -- but that’s another place that was almost totally destroyed at the end of the war of Europe. I don’t know if there’s ever been a movie about that, but it’s made vivid in the Pulitzer-winning novel All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
God I really wish I could have gone to Saint-Malo, but we only had a few days total in Normandy and our agenda was packed: a night in Honfleur, two in Bayeux (D-Day tour, the tapestry, etc.) and one near Mont-St.-Michel. Anyway, the D-Day tour is really something, and I was grateful to have a guide who had a lot of knowledge and also understood and respected the gravity of it.
I should really finally read All the Light We Cannot See, but boy howdy that's a long one.
I can’t argue with that itinerary. Honfleur is gorgeous -- hope you had some mussels! I also hope you tasted a bit of calvados somewhere along the way.
I can’t give All the Light We Cannot See a 100% enthusiastic recommendation. Doerr’s writing is way too florid for my taste, and I think the novel would have been better at two thirds the length. But he certainly does not stint when it comes to immersing you in the bombing of Saint-Malo.