Lilly the Land Yacht - September 19, 2018

September 19, 201849 20.88861N 0 5.60893E

Over the last week we have enjoyed the company of our friends in St Malo and we have experienced the history of the Normandy beaches. We had a wonderful couple of days with Rene and Nicole in St Malo along with far too much food and wine, as usual! Then we visited the fabulous Mt St Michel. Always awesome. Always special. On Friday we started the D-Day beach visits, starting with Utah beach and the Museum of the D-Day landings. We spent 3 hours at the museum, amazing footage of the troops landing and the conflict at this point, all part of the effort to push the Germans back from their stronghold in France in 1944. On Saturday we explored the area known as Pointe de Hoc. This promentory has been left intact, as it was at the end of WW2. The land is littered with craters from bombing. Broken bunkers and broken command posts. A large area to walk around and time to imagine what it might have been like for the troops fighting this battle. I am sure we really have no idea what is was like. Our next stop was the American cemetery at Omaha beach. A very moving sight with a sea of white crosses on a green lawn. The visitors centre here had footage of the fighting along with personal accounts from family members who lost loved ones here. Again, very moving. Then we visited the town of Arromanches, this is where the temporary harbour was set up, known as Mulberry Harbour. An incredible feat of planning and engineering. Floating concrete docks were towed across from England by sea, joined together by steel bridges to form a harbour with loading platforms. Without a natural port the allied forces needed this artificial harbour to land 2.5 million troops, 500,000 vehicles and 4 million tonnes of equipment in just three months after D-Day on 6th June 1944. Amazing. At Longues-sur-mer we walked around the German bunkers that survived mainly intact from that time, complete with 150mm artillary guns protected by concrete casements. At the town of Bayeux we visited another cemetery, this time mainly British, but also some Canadian, Australian and New Zealand graves here. We had a guided tour of Juno beach, where the Canadian troops came ashore and we visited the Canadian memorial. We saw evidence of forced labour by the Germans who insisted that the local French people help to build bunkers and underground tunnels. The local French people had sabotaged the building of the tunnels, making them very weak so they would collapse. We learned about the Canadian troops who helped the war effort here. At the time, Canada had a population of 11 million people. A staggering 1.1 million volunteered to assist the war in France, Belgium and Holland. These were volunteers! Only 16,000 were conscripted, much later, to replace the dead and wounded. Today was a huge day, spent at the Memorial museum in Caen. We spent the whole day, from 9 am to 4 pm here, absorbing information about the lead up to WW2, starting from the end of WW1, right through to the end of WW2 and then the Cold War, until the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. War was raging on so many fronts. France, Russia, North Africa, Japan, China, the Pacific. A mind boggling day of data and atrocities. So much actual footage of war times, of concentration camps, of fighting, of families devastated. A full day of seeing how cruel humans can be to each other. A reminder that no matter what paperwork a leader might sign, towards peace or some other accord, it may not mean the leader has any intention of following the sentiments of the agreement. Frightening, incredible, sad, bewildering. We are very lucky. We have not faced the atrocities of war in our home countries during our lifetime. We hope it never comes again. Now we are in the mood for something to restore our souls and lift our spirits. So tomorrow we travel to the town of Honfleur. A beautiful harbour town with a different kind of museum. For the next few days we will appreciate some art from Monet and some other impressionist painters. So far we still have beautiful weather. Today was 28 degrees and sunshine! Wonderful. Some rain is forecast for the weekend, but we do not mind, we have had such a fabulous 5 months, a little rain is nothing to worry about. After seeing the hardships of the people who lived through and died during the war, we realise our problems are very small. We do not fear for our lives. We don’t worry about what we will eat. Our biggest problem in the next few days is hoping to find a laundromat! Ha! We have nothing to complain about!!!

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