Which D-Day Tours have you taken that you recommend?

Hi Wren,
I spent some time in Normandy last summer, just driving around by myself -
no tour. Wanted to tell you that the two things I enjoyed most were simply walking the beaches and the Musee du Debarquement Arromanches. The Cinema in the round there was fantastic - a lot of footage of the invasion I had never seen. There was another museum in Ouistreham(where I stayed) about the English Commandos and the French soldiers that went in atSword Beach - Musee n 4 Commando. Hope you enjoy you visit - was my best "vacation" ever.
Sue

Wren:

Here is the advice I can give you about a D-Day tour. In May, I was in Paris and I was going to take the City Rama tour they offer that departs from Paris. However, after looking at their prices, I decided to use my rail pass to take the train to Caen.

So we left Paris and went to Caen. However, we arrived into Caen and was unable to make it into Normandy because of no scheduled bus service. We thought there would be tours that left from Caen, but we were wrong. So don't do the same mistake.

I am going in March and I have a tour scheduled. After researching past posts on fodors, I contacted Victory Tours.

We are leaving Paris (St. Lazare Station) connect into Caen and arrive into Bayeux. You can get current information on train tickets on www.sncf.com. It costs around 28 Euro for a roundtrip ticket from Paris to Bayeux.

Victory Tours starts at 9:45 A.M. and departs from Bayeux. The first train from Paris via Caen arrives around 9:22 A.M. Basically, the tour starts after the first train.

The website for Victory Tours is

http://www.lignerolles.homestead.com/victorytours.html

The cost is 70 Euro for the all day tour. I hear this guy gives a great tour (he is a one man show that takes up to 8 people on a tour). The tour lasts all day. Detailed stops are listed on his website.

The tour guide has communicated great with me. I sent him several emails and he responded quickly. I sent him a request for two for a tour with him and he sent a confirmation back. He only requires the 70 Euro in cash upon arrival.

There are two trains that depart Bayeux for Paris after 6 P.M. so you'll be able to catch one of these trains back to Paris after the tour.

If I hadn't made hotel reservations, I would have spent the night in Bayeux. After looking at Victory Tours, they also provide a B&B for people to stay at before their tour in the morning.

So for a recap:

Victory Tours (70 Euro per person)
Depart Paris St. Lazare Station
Arrive Caen, Depart Caen for Bayeux (Very easy to do)
All day tour with one guide
Depart Bayeux for Paris

If you have time, I hear the World War II museum in Caen is great. You might want to check into that too.

The Memorial in Caen is a must see for those interested in the D-Day landings. They run tours of the beaches, and will pick you up at the Caen station. For details, see the site at:

http://www.memorial-caen.fr/portail/...n/circuits.asp

I would also strongly recommend the Battle of Normandy Museum in Bayeux.

By the way, college travelers, Caen is very much in Normandy. In fact, after Rouen, it is the main city of Normandy.

Thanks...we will be staying 2 nights in Bayeux (arriving from Brittany by car). I have heard some say to just do the area on your own, but I think this might be a time we'd get more out of letting someone else do the driving...and having them tell us where and what everything is. We definitely will include Caen in our stops.

We were just there in September and did it on our own. We had stayed the night before in Mt St. Michel. Stopped in Bayeux, picked up the d-day beach brochures and headed out. We picked out what we wanted to see and took our time. We were 2 couples and the guys really wanted to climb around the gun turrets etc. We saw Point du Hoc (I think that may be misspelled), Omaha and Gold Beaches, another area with the battlements still standing, the US Cemetery and Arromanches before calling it a day. Next day we did the Museum in Caen. Our guidebook said to plan on 3.5 hours for the museum, it took our husbands 5.5 hours. If you do your research before to determine what you want to see, it is helpful.

Doing it on your own is very easy. Once you get to the shore, there's only one road, essentially, and signs everywhere. It's not a part of France you'd be likely to get lost in, as you are basically traveling along the shore from beach to beach.



I agree the Mémorial is an amazing museum. The almost four hours we spent there flew by.The Arromanches museum is interesting and worth a stop, but pales in comparison.

On a tour, you get to hear the history while you are looking around. St. Cirq, did you feel like you got as much out of it as you would have if someone was leading you around telling you the significance of what you were seeing? I am concerned that I will either be reading a guide and miss the sights, or see the sights and not really know the significance of them.

Wren:

I did a great deal of reading before I went. I usually do that before traveling anywhere. In addition, the museums and the tourist offices in Bayeux and Caen have all kinds of information to clue you in on what you're seeing and its significance. And, at the sites themselves, there are all kinds of markers showing who was where at what time and so forth. Plus, the exhibits in the museums are exhaustive.
But I should think you would want to read a book or two about the D-Day landings before you go, whether or not you decide to hire a guide or go on a tour. It's quite a fascinating slice of history, and I find when I actually find myself standing in a place that I've read about and imagined, it seems all the more amazing.

St Cirq, Any books in particular that you'd recommend?

We decided that a day trip from Paris would not let us see enough, so we started our visit with four days in Caen. I chose Caen because I wanted to have plenty of time to see the memorial, the ducal estate, and their art museum.

I read extensively about the various tours, and found no single tour (except the custom tours that were beyond my budget) that included all the sights I wanted to see, so we just hired a taxi in Caen and did our own tour. The disadvantages of this are that you have no guide, but the signs and museums, coupled with my research, overcame this. The disadvantages of the organized tour are that the schedule is fixed, and you cannot linger, or skip stops. I had thought of just renting a car, and I'm glad I didn't, because many of the roads we took were little more than paved paths, and I would have spent all my time attending to the driving and navigation, rather than to watching the scenery.

Even with a taxi driver who spoke surprisingly little English, we had a very good tour, and if I go again I would do it the same way. We found Caen more interesting than we had expected, although certainly not as scenic as Bayeaux, from what I have read.

Wren:

The Longest Day, by Cornelius Ryan (also rent the movie, a classic).

D-Day: June 6, 1944 - The Climactic Battle of World War II, by Stephen Ambrose

Voices of D-Day: The Story of the Allied Invasion by Those Who Were There, Ronald J. Drez, editor

I also picked up a copy of The D-Day Landing Beaches: The Guide, by Georges Bernage

You could also rent Saving Private Ryan.

There are literally thousands of books on the D-Day landings. I'm sure you can find a great selection at your local library.

Happy reading and good travels.

Great ideas from everyone!!! (As usual!) Thanks. Have seen Private Ryan. I saw The Longest Day years ago...had forgotten about that movie.(Blockbuster, here I come) I think I gave my dad the Steven Ambrose book...guess I'll see if he can regift it to me! I'll check into the other books...Great suggestions, St Cirq.

"Band of Brothers" is the most realistic WWII combat footage I have seen. 10 hours long, but you can just view the first 3-4 hours to get the D-Day experience. It is tremendous.

Regards,

Jinx Hoover