"Cherbourg-Caen coast" Carentan by denise16

For many year we have docked at Caen, rolled off the ferry and headed off to Brittany never giving the Caen area a 2nd glance. Then we decided to spend a week there, Sept. 2008.

We had a delightful little pink cottage, once the village bakehouse in Houesville. A little village just off the E46 the main road between Normandy ports of Cherbourg & Caen. Just down the road is the WWII museum at dead man's corner, which looks at the US airmen's story of the D Day landings.
http://battlefieldsww2.50megs.com/deadmans.htm
Little further on is the pretty town of Carentan.

Approx. 5miles east of our cottage is the magnificent Utah beach, one of the most famous of the D Day landings. The roads around the coast have been re-named after fallen US soldiers, and every kilometre is marked all the way to Paris.

The paratrooper mock-up

Going north towards Cherbourg is Sainte-Marie Eglise, famous from the film the Longest Day, but the actual site of more Airmen liberating France, and Paratrooper John Steele becoming entangled by his parachute to the church tower. This is still celebrated each year with a mock-up paratrooper hanging from the tower.

Inside the Church at St. Mere Eglise is a beautiful window to commemorate the liberation of the town, by US airmen.

• Pros:The history, the people, the beaches & cider
• Cons:none