Featured holiday Highlights of the Normandy Landing Beaches France

You start this self-drive holiday of the Normandy landing beaches, monuments and sites associated with World War II with the crossing with Eurotunnel for your car and passengers from Folkestone to Calais. With a journey time on the train of just 35 minutes, you are soon on French soil and ready for the drive south to Normandy. The direct route by autoroute and the impressive Pont de Normandie that spans the mouth of the River Seine takes about three hours. However, there are numerous places of interest you could stop to visit just off the route: there are the sites of the battles of Agincourt and then Crecy a little further south, the cathedral city of Amiens on the River Somme and at the estuary of the river a nature reserve, further south there are the coastal towns of Fecamp and Etretat, both immortalised in art by the works of Monet.

From your base at Honfleur we suggest today is spent enjoying the charm of the port of Honfleur, with its sheltered harbour flanked by tall, half-timbered buildings, teeming with art galleries and restaurants, and taking a tour of the charming Calvados countryside that is the hinterland to Honfleur with its fine half-timbered farmhouses, barns and apple orchards. A drive of about 40 minutes from Honfleur brings you to the delightful village of Beuvron-en-Auge. From here retrace your steps towards the coast and the long sandy beaches of the chic seaside resort of Deauville. (If you want to dine in Honfleur in the evening, it’s worth having made your choice of restaurant earlier in the day and secured space for the evening).

This morning you can drive along the coast through the seaside resort of Cabourg-sur-Mer, which provided much inspiration for Marcel Proust’s Balbec in In Search of Lost Time. Your first stop should be at the site of the Merville Battery, a German bunker that the 9th Parachute Battalion captured against considerable odds. Four bunkers equipped as museums can be visited. From here it’s a short drive to Bénouville and what is now known as Pegasus Bridge. On the land between the River Orne and the Caen Canal, you’ll find the significant site where the British 6th Airborne Division landed on Norman soil on the night of the 5th to the 6th June 1944. There is a well-equipped museum. You must take time to have a drink in nearby Café Gondrée, arguably the first house in France to be liberated. Once you have crossed into Benouville, head across country towards the Hillman German bunker and then on to Lion sur Mer and Sword Beach. There are memorials along the beach and inland British and German cemeteries. Further along you reach the town of Courseulles-sur-Mer and the Juno Beach centre and museum. Juno was the landing place of several Canadian units. From here we suggest you turn inland to reach your hotel near Bayeux, leaving the next stretch of beach for another day.

You have two days from your base north of Bayeux to visit Bayeux itself with its museum of the Battle of Normandy and poignant British war cemetery. Whilst in Bayeux make time for a visit to the 13th Century cathedral and the famous Bayeux tapestry. To the north of Bayeux at Arromanches you can see the mulberry harbours, a memorial to the Royal Engineers and visit the Museum of the Normandy Landings, situated on the seafront in the centre of the town. To the west of the town near the coast is the German battery at Longues-sur-Mer where you can get a real sense of the enormity of these gun installations. From here westwards, you are in the American landing zone with Overlord Museum, the American Normandy cemetery and Omaha Beach, scene of devastating loss of life as US forces battled to take a foothold in Normandy. At the end of Omaha Beach the sand gives way to cliffs and this leads to the Pointe du Hoc, at 100 ft high and fortified by a German battery with six cannons with a range of 12 miles and guarded by 125 infantry and 80 gunners. It was this stronghold that was taken by 2nd battalion US Rangers. Inland is Maisy battery and La Cambe German war cemetery.

From Bayeux your route home today takes you through Caen and along the A13 eastwards. You have a choice of crossing the Seine at the Pont de Normandie near Honfleur and retracing your steps to Calais, or you could venture into Rouen, visit its magnificent cathedral and old town, with its 14th century astronomical clock, the Gros-Horloge, and the museum dedicated to Joan of Arc who was burned at the stake here, before turning northwards to Calais.