I've been planning my trip with the thought to spend 2 night in Caen and spending a day visiting the Normandy Beaches and memorial. Tonight, as I am searching the internet for tours for the Normandy beaches (I won't have a car, so I figured I'd take a guided tour), I found that many of the tours leave from Bayeux. It started me thinking that maybe I should stay in Bayeux instead of Caen? Anyone have any ideas as to which one would be better and also have other things to visit on the half day that I will be there in addition to the full day?

Bayeux has one of the best WW2 Museums in Normandy and great access to the beaches, do you drive? because you can hire a car quite cheaply if you wanted to as there are loads of German bunkers and casemates in the surrounding areas that are easier to find by yourself. Caen is a lot bigger and has the castle where many resistance people were killed on the morning of D Day. It was the German Garrison HQ at the time.
But Bayeux is a lovely town and well worth a visit even if you decide not to stay there.

Muck

I would definitely recommend staying in Bayeux. It is a charming town, Caen is not charming at all. Numerous tours leave from Bayeux and we found the tour we took excellent - much easier than trying to make your way around on your own. It has good restaurants and is a delight to visit for such things as the Bayeux Tapestry (a must-see) and the cathedral.

Definitely base yourself in Bayeux. It's a lovely little town, and it's got the Bayeux Tapestry, which is a unique historical experience. It's a great town for just wandering, too, and has a lovely cathedral. Caen is big and pretty ugly, but you really should visit the Mémorial museum there, which is outstanding. Without a car, you could easily get to Caen and back on the train.

Faced with the same question, I picked Caen. Some reasons were that I wanted to spend time in the peace memorial, see pegasus bridge, visit the chateau (castle), visit the art museum, and go on my own tour (I didn't rent a car, but rather hired a taxi) so I could see exactly what I wanted to see on my own schedule. We enjoyed Caen, but most of it has been rebuilt since WWII so it is not as scenic as Bayeux, but since we would be spending a lot of time on activities in or near Caen, it was the right choice for us. I agree that most of the organized tours seem to start in Bayeux (the peace memorial in Caen does offer organized tours), but I couldn't find an affordable organized tour that covered all the invasion sites I wanted to see.

cean also has the men's and women's abbeys, historic and very much worth seeing. but i agree that bayeux is a nicer place in which to stay.

I liked Bayeux as a base better because it seemed closer to the DDay beaches than Caen. In fact, we caught our Paris train to Caen, then took another train to Bayeux. Bayeux has its famous cathedral and Tapestry as draws, besides being a charming little town. I stay there each time I go to Normandy. The tourist office in Bayeux is very helpful about arranging tours of the nearby DDay beaches and also to Mont St. Michel.

Hello Lyb: A thread raising sinilar issues was generated a while back by Kimberlyb (no relation I assume). The thread is entitled "D-Day/Normandy Visit-Please Help!" and contains some very thoughtful comments. Good Luck. Gradyghost. P.S., for what it's worth, we stayed in Port-en-Bessim near Bayeax for 4 days in October and found it to be a great HQ. We took a full day tour with Roel Klinkhamer of Victory Tours; can't imagine it could get better.

Sadly, the Battle of Normandy Museum in Bayeux, which used to be one of the best museums devoted to that battle, is not what it used to be since the town of Bayeux decided to change its emphasis. See my post in this thread:
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34561893

One of the great strengths of that museum is that it covered the whole battle, which lasted until nearly the end of August 1944. Many visitors concentrate solely on the landings, and justifiably so, but there is much of interest inland as well.

I hope to be in Normandy again later this year, and will be interested to see what has happened to the museum.

If what laverendrye says is true, that is a real shame, the Museum in Bayeux satisfied everyones curiosity from a 7 year old girl in our party to 67 year olds. We were there in August 04, has this happened since then?
I spent about 5 hours in that museum and probably absorbed only about 20% of what was there and I fully intend to be back there next visit.
Muck