The reality of Utah Beach

Because we have not yet found a grocery store, breakfast is leftover bread with jam and butter we brought from Paris, and a peach with yogurt. We need to find a grocery today. We decided to do Itinerary One from the book Barney got, which focuses on the area around Utah Beach. After a bit of getting lost at the beginning - for some reason the GPS would not recognize the town of Ste Mere-Eglise which is ridiculous - we finally found our way there. The church there looks just like it does in all the photos, especially with the dummy paratrooper hanging from the steeple where his parachute caught, one of the more famous incidents there. We see the St Michael stained glass (the patron saint of paratroopers) and the stained glass of the Virgin surrounded by paratroopers. It is clear that people take the liberation ether very seriously, even more than 70 years later. Most stores and restaurants have signs that say "welcome veterans" even thought the youngest veterans would now be about 91 years old. Most of the tourists we see today are English-speaking, probably at least 2/3 to maybe 75%, the rest mostly French with a few German.

After a nice walk around the town, we're off to find some of the areas where paratroopers were landing, but things go awry, so we headed up north, saw the Captain Winters memorial, and stopped at the town of Saint Marie du Mont, which was also liberated fairly early. Photos in the window of a souvenir shop show the area as it was before and after D-Day, luckily not too much damage, mostly the presence of one type of troops or another. We go inside the church which was quite lovely and peaceful, no one else there, so I sang the "Pie Jesu" again, this time full voice, and what a sound! It was o nice, and we learned that the community had put more than $500K into renovating the church and repairing the damage to the tower. The photos we see of a various towns devastated by bombings are truly saddening.

Then to Utah Beach, considered one of the most successful landings for various reasons (mostly the leaders saying full steam ahead even after they found out there were a few miles southeast of where they were supposed to land). Coming up from the parking area. It s a humbling experience ... a huge expense of beach, on which they landed at low tide no less, and thus had to cross 700 yards of bench on their own before getting to the Gereman positions. Luckily, this area was not as heavily defended as Omaha, which we'll see on Thursday.  The Omaha Beach museum is excellent, well worth the time, but stay twice as long as the guidebook suggests because we are the people who read every sign and placard. I have learned so much, Barney already knew much of this, but seeing it is real like is still a thrill.  We head back toward the bridge at La Fiere, which we missed the first time, a major landing area of the paratroopers. We could walk right over the bridge where they walked, but the tiny creek we see now is nothing like the huge Merteret River that had been dammed to flood the surrounding area (and drown paratroopers). It all looked so pastoral.

Back on Bayeux, we decide to have tomorrow be our in Beyux day. we see Jerome and Sebastian, and Jerome tell us he is the curator of the church and Sebastian is a guide for a nearby abbey. They invite us too the Bell ringing at 7:00om on Wednesday, the night before the Ascension,and for course we say yes!

Getting rather tired now, heading off to bed for our day tomorrow in medieval Bayeux.