It was cold last night, it was completely clear
again, may have to get our sleeping bag out tonight! Lovely bright morning, packed away and drove
north up to Arromanches. The aire in town
was really busy, we decided to give Bayeaux a miss as we’d been told it was
super busy! Luckily we stopped on the
side and had lunch, then as we finished up a van left which was right next to
the grass. So, we quickly jumped
in!! The aire is 2 mins from town centre
so we walked in. The sea was coming in but
we could easily see the mulberry harbour and the remains of the bridges that
had been built.
Then we walked up the
hill for a fantastic view across the whole bay.
Some good maps illustrated the ‘Overlord’ operation. Also at the top was a 360 cinema that we went
to. It showed a 19 minute film of the
100 days of the Normandy liberation. Loads
of old film was put together to tell the events, it was brilliant. Really emotional, especially sad showing the
men in boats ready to land and the parachute division. 50% were not expected to make it. So glad we chose to go in there rather than
the museum in the town as I think the kids got a lot more out of seeing the
visual. Evan has understood a surprising
amount of it, and we bought a book for him explaining the D-Day landings which
he has read cover to cover and then quizzed Chris on constantly!!
Walked back down the hill onto the beach, the
tide was so far in there was virtually no dry sand at all!! Clear to see why it was such a good beach to
choose for the mulberry harbour and by landing at night there was very little
for the soldiers to have to scramble across.
We had to come back up onto the prom.
Chris bought a ‘cricket’, the clicking communication device that the Americans
used. Kids loved it!!
Kids had a calypo and we walked along to the
harbour past some massive houses! Some kids were jumping off the harbour into
the sea.
Went back to Flo, it was such a hot afternoon,
the kids made finger puppets. The aire
was so busy, loads of Italians arrived and were keeping spaces and then 2 French
vans packed right up close to us so we were completely boxed in, sometimes
people are idiots!!
