Note I said pleasant, not wonderful, and that is because we were awakened at 5:00am, when the bars get out I guess, by a argument on the street in front of the hotel. In fact, just under our window on the second floor. Or perhaps it was good fellowship and warm wishes for the day, and commenting on how wonderfully bright and capable they all were, and it only sounded like a fight because they were speaking French and being very demonstrative. But somehow I doubt it, even the French don't sound like that if they are happy. Some of the words are lost on me, but I think I heard it expressed that one fellow was spawned by a female dog. Not nice, he should be ashamed. Anyway, no big deal, they moved off after a while and we went back to sleep.
Then we were up, showered, loaded the car, and went back for breakfast to the hotel. The Innkeeper was a charming fellow, and brought us a pot of coffee, a jug of orange juice, croissants, baguettes, butter, and Jam. There was one other couple in the little breakfast room with us, very friendly, but they had no English and we had no spoken French, so the conversation sort of fizzled out after a short time. But there was much nodding of heads between us, and smiling, and 'au revoir' and 'merci' on their leaving. Very nice. Then we paid and left, and went out to the car and to wake up our faithful travel companion Hal.
Our destinations today are the Normandy Beaches, the sites of the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944. We drove about 15 kilometers from Bayeux to Arromanches, and near to that town is the site of Gold Beach, our first stop. That is the beach where one of the two prongs of the British invasion force landed. All along the beach at that point are high cliffs, stunningly vertical and high, impossible to climb. Except that in spite of the machine guns, they were climbed and the small town was taken and the Mulberry Harbours were set up and the men and tanks and material came ashore in a great flood of bristling malice. We couldn't get down to the beach to walk it, but even if we had we could not have come close to the view or the sense that those men coming off the landing craft would have had on that terrible morning. The site on the hilltop is austere, there are the concrete shells of German observation posts and gun emplacements, and that is all that is left from that time. Over the years, people have added memorials and statues, and plastic wreathes of poppies adorn the statues and old gun emplacements in the name of the British Sappers or Engineering Batallions that came ashore at that beach. One statue there, looking fairly new and very tall and white, is (I think) an angel of mercy looking over the battlefield. She should have been there then, when she could have done some good. There was also a large cinema-in-the-round, but it was closed for the month of January.
Next we went about 12 kilometers east to Juno Beach, site of the Canadian landings on D-Day. Here the likes of The Canadian Scottish and Fort Garry Rifles and other battle groups hit the beaches and stormed ashore. By the accounts on the plaques the Canadians aquitted themselves very well that day and in spite of fearful losses and not reaching their day's objectives the generals proclaimed the event a resounding success. A memorial building is in place on the site, recounting Canada's heroics that day and encouraging visitors to come visit today's Canada, but it was also closed for the month of January. But, out front of the building entrance, there are many kiosks with the names of the fallen engraved on them. So many, many names. I tried to imagine all those names, alive today, standing there in a group. How big a group, what would they look like in the fragile time of their lives as young men, as husbands and fathers and brothers and sons and friends. So very, very many, such a big group, so many young men, standing there. And try as I might, I couldn't see a face on one of them, just bodies and arms and legs, whole and undamaged, but no faces. I tried to see them as people, but failed. They just stood.
I went to the beach there, it was open rolling hills with no cliffs, just a lot of sand to the waters edge at the low tide of today. I walked to the waters edge and looked back to Jan and the beach, then walked back to the sand dunes and blowing grasses at the margin of the high tide. Then through these dunes and to the car. And Jan and I got in and we drove away, west, toward the American landing zones of Utah and Omaha beaches. Bert, Jan's father, had come that way so many years ago, and seen and done things that had affected him for the rest of his life. I am so privileged to have never felt the pull of the armed forces, nor the awful experience of war, and I can't stand in judgement of those who were there or why they went to that terrible place.
Finally, up the road to the Omaha Beach Memorial. The memorial is American, and nobody does a war memorial like the Americans. Jan and I visited the Vietnam memorial and WWII memorial in Washinton D.C. last year, and what is there is awe-inspiring and riveting in its glorification of America's fallen fighting men and women. The Omaha beach memorial was in that same tradition. All about Americans and their dedication and self-sacrifice and bravery, but reading between the lines it speaks the same message for all of the armed forces. But then too, the Juno and Sword beaches were only about the experiences of the Canadian and Brits that fought and died there. But Brits and Canadians are not buried en mass at their sites and the Americans are, and that is the difference in the presence that the memorials have. The beach itself is much like Juno, flatish with no cliffs, but here the rolling hills that had to be climbed were closer to the water's edge than at Juno. And from the beach (we went there first, and walked on the beach nearly to the low tide point) when we looked up to the crest of the hill above us, we could see the American flag flying atop a tall flagpole. Somehow, I just knew what would await us on that high place.
Back into the car and we drove up the hill along a steep and winding road, into the huge parking lot, and walked past the manicured lawns and trimmed trees and pruned shrubs, devoid of leaves but waiting to burst out in bloom in the eternal spring just around the corner. Into the vast hall of the display, free to all who walk in but all subject to the emptying of pockets and passing through the scanners before entry, under the scrutiny of the guards in their caps and uniforms. Even the dead and their memory are threatened by terrorism? Is it proper to ask then, who won the battle that cost these men and women their lives? But I didn't and wouldn't ask, it would be disrespectful. And I can't begin to tell you of the displays in that hall, or the movies that were shown there that Jan and I watched. These short movies, about some of the individual soldiers and their histories, were like 'The Longest Day' and like 'Saving Private Ryan' and all the other war movies, not literally but figuratively, all of the 'glory' of war and the heroic fallen. All of the spirit of sacrifice, all of the 'not for conquest that we fight, but only for a piece of ground where we can bury our glorious dead'. That last part is one of the inscriptions on the wall, to the best that I recall it. But Jan and I walked through the whole thing and read the plaques and watched the short movies and saw the displays and the tributes to the fallen, and both of us were honestly, strangely, moved by the experience of it all. We really were.
Then the exit from the display hall led us out to one of the rolling hills that face the beach, and we looked out over the landing area, and saw the displays of which regiments came from where, and where they went after the beachhead as the advance rolled forward. And then the path led us on, further to the west again, and we saw them, just by the trees ahead. We walked faster now for some reason, the path bending upwards and to the left. At first only a hint of white markers on the green field and then as we topped the low rise step by step, there in front of us, the crosses, row upon row upon row upon row, endless it seemed, rows without number, columns without end, the dead. Now we walked perpendicular to the beach toward the middle of the field, the sheer mass of the markers stunningly arrayed in rank and file, perfect precise order in the straight columns and diagonal lines. Here and there, scattered, a Star of David would replace the cross on the marker but otherwise the uniformity and the sheer mass took our breaths away. Forward now, walking in front of the grave markers to read the names of only a very few, and the dates of their passing.
All American, all the ground troops that died from D-Day through the passage through Normandy and France and the Low Countries, into Nazi Germany. This vast field, the flags above, the grave markers perfectly white and precisely arranged and the grass clipped and green, huge monuments with brave words and sculptures at either end, and long reflecting pools like in Washington DC, and perfect meditative stillness, and above it the sky had become blue and the sun shone, and rays of sunlight spilled out in defined bands of light for a moment from behind a cloud that passed briefly overhead. Oh yes, the Americans know how to celebrate their war dead. And, arguably, so they should. Celebrate?? I don't know. But certainly remember them, and say thanks, and maybe that is a form of celebration.
Finally, back to the car and on the road again. Not sure where we want to spend the night, just somewhere west and south of here. Eventually settled on Rennes, and Jan found a motel address from one of our books we got from the tourist bureau in Bayeux yesterday. She keyed it into Hal, and we set off in the gathering twilight. Round and round we went through the backroads of rural France, the Hedgerow country, past endless farms and pastures and small picturesque towns and always this patchwork quilt of fields cut into strange geometric shapes by the berms of dirt and shrubbery that divide the farms. By the way, all natural barriers and defences that the retreating Germans used well. In the end we saw the countryside up close and personal, and enjoyed the experience. Had we been in a hurry it might have been different, but we were not rushed as anywhere would have served as well for the night as anywhere else.
In the end, we made it to Rennes just as it became trully dark. Then we hit the perfect storm formed by the combination of that darkness, a French traffic jam, and our GPS suddenly running out of battery. The darkness because we were too optimistic about our progress, the 'Frenchness' of the traffic jam being the totally frantic pace and disorganized paths of the cars, trucks, and bicycles (!!), and the GPS because our car's cigarette lighter doesn't work and our GPS battery is only good for about 3 hours. We got to the hotel, finally, but there was nowhere to park on the street, so we drove around looking for our second choice of hotel for the night. An absolute nightmare rabbit-warren rats-nest of roads, a lot of one-ways and one-laners with two and up to three lanes of traffic fighting to move forward at top speed. Very, very long lights, no right turns at red lights, and a totally confused GPS that seemed to have its New York map up on the screen instead of Rennes. I would have pulled off the road, anywhere, if I could have but every (!!) parking space was full so we couldn't even stop to think.
Finally after over half an hour of this madness in traffic that hadn't slowed one bit, we found ourselves heading for the Train Station again quite without intending it. And suddenly in front of the hotel again. This time I double-parked, urged on by Jan and, what the hell, everybody else was doing it all over town, went in and booked the room. Where to park I asked the lovely and very pregnant desk clerk. She shrugged and smiled and said 'wherever you can'. Out I went again, got in the car, told Jan we got the room but nowhere to leave the car, and we set out again. This time lady luck smiled on us, and about two blocks away while stopped behind cars at a light Jan noticed the backup lights of a car next to us angle parked and about to leave. I tried to back up, but the only car behind us would not move back, thinking that the spot would be hers if she held her ground. It was a Mexican standoff. The spaceholder couldn't back up, I couldn't back up, and the woman behind me wouldn't back up. Finally the spaceholder grew tired of it and exited his space via the sidewalk (the French are a practical race) and I pulled in and thumbed my nose at the woman behind me.
The neighborhood looked OK, a bit seedy as just behind us was a 'SEX SHOP' as advertised in large green neon letters, but otherwise alright. Jan and I shouldered what we wanted to carry in and set off on a two block walk, just glad to be down for the night. We celebrated with dinner at a small bistro, having a bottle of Bordeaux wine, a dinner crepe each, and shared a Grand Marnier flambed chocolate desert crepe. Then, exhausted, to the hotel and a crash landing on the bed, out for the night.
Tomorrow, gone from this traffic-snarled city and on the road south.
