France

Cherbourg is the port at the north of the Cotentin peninsula at the west end of the Normandy beaches of D-Day fame. Our excursion took us to visit the small town of Saint-Mere-Eglise (just in from the Utah Beach area) and to Utah Beach.

One paratrooper, John Steele, got hung up on the steeple and became well known. They have a chute and dummy hanging there now for show-and-tell’

He faked being dead for awhile but the Germans figured that out and took him prisoner, but he managed to escape a day or two later and got back into action with his unit.

The stained glass windows got a remake after the D-Day action. Here’s Mother Mary with a couple of paratroopers.

Here is the old City Hall a block or so west of the Church that housed the German headquarters from 1940 until they had to leave after D-Day.

Saint-Mere-Eglise is a pleasant little town and soon to be very crowded with the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

It was nice to see quite a few American flags in town and at the beach.

And then we go to the Utah Beach – about 10 miles away.

Ted Roosevelt Jr was a general that came ashore here at Utah Beach. He was The only general that was part of the landings on June 6. He made some great decisions and led many troops to the right places and won a Medal of Honor for his action that day. Omar Bradley said it was the most heroic action that he was aware of in WW2. Unfortunately Ted Jr died of a heart attack a month later – age 55. Buried here in Normandy.

Our tour guide was very knowledgeable about D-Day history having made a career out of it. He had a strong French accent and spoke quickly so we missed some of his wisdom.

HONFLEUR. Honfleur is at the mouth of the River Seine – so downstream of Paris. Just upstream from our docking location is a cable-stayed bridge over the river that was the world-longest cable-stayed bridge until about 20 years ago when Korea exceeded it.

We started our day with a walk to town and a self-guided tour and coffee and croissant break.

Honfleur was the central location for the start of impressionist art. About eight of the famous impressionists made pictures here.

Our afternoon tour included lots of history to add to a pleasant visit. This old warehouse was built to store salt that was needed to preserve all the fish caught locally before they had refrigeration. The roof framing was built by ship-builders who knew how to build ships but not so good at conventional roof framing.

Samuel Champlain left from here on his way to discover the St Lawrence and found Quebec.

Saint Catherine Church is the oldest wood-frame church in France dating back to 15th century. For some reason they had the bell tower separate from the main church.