We start with a lovely breakfast at “Le Grand Hard” and roll out eventually (why does it take so long to get going in the morning???) – later than we’d hoped even with the alarm, but earlier than usual knowing we had a longer day with lots of history stops on the way. It’s grey and cloudy, fine mist falling and forecast says we’re getting intermittent showers today so we suit up in raingear, but I took mine off before we leave as it’s so humid.
The first part of the trip retraces us back to Carentan, then we split off towards Omaha Beach. Given our past experiences we duck into the Lidl (grocery store) in the first sizeable town, Carentan, to sequester lunch supplies (bread, cheese, extra water). Happily it cleared up so that by the time we got to Point du Hoc, we were getting sunburnt instead and had decanted sleeve and knee pad warmers. We elected to bypass the museum at Point du Hoc and took the path that led away, apparently down to the beachhead. The cliffs here were scaled on D-day overcoming strong fortifications from the Germans, and the path led to the gun sites with a fair number of people around. We were told by a staff person not to take our bikes down to the end (really, there were no signs) so returned and had lunch overlooking a nearby field and carried on to Omaha Beach.
We spent a little time after lunch cycling with somewhat fully loaded, from slightly further North. He told us he’d been on the road since early May, had cycled through snow, hail, rain, had camped all the way and he sported a picture on the back of his back bag saying “cycling for xxxxx” (a friend’s autistic child). The goal was 5000 km. He certainly looked fit, and managed to pedal away from us fully loaded after we chatted a bit.
It does seem odd that the names of these beaches are so un-French, though understandably for memorial purposes they were changed to the invasion code names after the fact. Eisenhower’s name, as leader of the U.S. troops, appears frequently as well, not to mention the “101eme Airborne Cafe” in Carentan. Omaha Beach has a striking memorial structure on a beautiful sandy beach that runs for miles. Étienne managed to get his front bike wheel caught in a rut in the sand going off the pavement to shortcut a corner and did a balletic fall with the frame nicely netting the bollock nearby like a perfect shot in “horseshoes”, prompting several bystanders to come to aid – only a little blood was shed on this occasion though.
We bypassed yet another museum just up from the beach – a possible chance to access washrooms was thwarted by a battleax at the desk who told us we’d have to pay to get in first. Not doing well with authority today….. After the hill from the beach it was fairly easy cruising for awhile, in spotty sunshine but thankfully none of the promised showers showed up, only occasional spotting. We detoured at my insistence to the American cemetery which turned out to have a stunning view of the ocean, immaculately maintained grounds and museum and starkly showed the losses with rows upon rows of white crosses. Étienne stayed with the bikes and after a fairly long walk at high speed to get a quick look, we walked our bikes to the washrooms and he was again yelled at by a staff member as apparently we were supposed to leave our bikes 100 m back. Not our day for rules….
The road was busier from here, so we put our heads down and pedalled towards Bayeux with only one route diversion off the main road – here, we eventually let past an oversized vehicle on this smallish road, cursing ourselves later when we got stuck behind it as the road got even smaller and a considerable pruning job was done on the surrounding trees. This entailed also multiple stops for other vehicles to back up and turn around to look for a driveway or pullout as even pulling to the side wasn’t enough to let the beast by. It sprinkled at one point and I had visions of another soaking, riding at 10 km/hr the rest of the way…. Fortunately we made it through to a bigger road (curious route to pick for a large load transfer actually) and were soon at the last hill before Bayeux after a stretch of highway that we elected to leave prematurely (and not reluctantly) for a marked bike route that Étienne spotted at the bottom of the hill – this took us through farming communities to the edge of town in a much more pleasant way. Not sure why this wasn’t in the original route?
Our hotel was in the heart of the old town so we started another odd experience of riding bikes through pedestrian shopping areas, mixing with cars and pedestrians alike on the road. Lovely old town – I was enjoying the scenery and concentrating on where I was going when I noted Étienne had disappeared behind me. I stopped, expecting him to appear momentarily (he’d been there a couple of minutes ago, no?) but there was no sign of him for the next ten minutes that I spent awkwardly perched on the narrow sidewalk trying to shrink against the wall as masses of pedestrians tried to get by without going into traffic- after 74 km I’m sure I also looked quite frightening, red faced and hair sticking out of my helmet vents. Where the *&_^*)&*(& had Étienne gone? I checked for sirens (none) indicating a collision, entirely possibly in this melee – or a crowd surrounding a downed casualty, either pedestrian or cyclist (none as far as I could see but wasn’t sure where I’d dropped him). Had he gone down another road? Were my directions out ? (we were at the end and often the route provided didn’t show the last 100 m and no, the hotels were not often in sight at this point) Just as I was on the verge of trying to attempt the equivalent of swimming upriver to go backwards to see if I could find him, Étienne appears with a bag of chocolates swinging from his handlebars. “Saw a chocolatier, thought I’d better stop in case we didn’t find it again, I called, didn’t you hear?” In that cacophony with my bad hearing? Sure son, of course,. Yes, I did enjoy a few pieces of the chocolate covered orange when we finally arrived….
Lovely hotel in the centre of town but when we asked, to our consternation were told our bike boxes hadn’t yet arrived. This was the first hotel that had showed any angst with us bringing bikes into the lobby, and directed us to put them in a back passage of the store room (no bike parking, we were between the cheese and the extra chairs). When we phoned the bike company they assured us the boxes were there, and were eventually located in the outside garage, unlocked (not that most people would want to roll off with a beast that size, but…..).
A quick shower, and a stroll around a bit of town over to the museum housing the Bayeux tapestry for an oggling – worth all the raptures written about it and a clever display system enable you to follow the story as you go. The advantage of going near closing is that there are many fewer people around so we were able to take our time…. after coffee and acquisition of local cider to help us through the next few hours of bike boxing we booked for dinner and requested space to disassemble – directed to the garage where there was only one space left and several cars drove in while we working, eyeing it greedily. (It wasn’t as great as it looked, as a pile of dog poop was in the back, where one of the bike boxes was put down – more on that on a subsequent day….). It was the usual joy to pull the bikes apart and fit them into their coffins, and we made the last sitting for dinner – just; good dinner, mostly fish but the usual two hour affair so very glad that we didn’t have to return to the dark corner of the garage to finish up.
Memories of the day – lovely countryside and views near the coast, stunning site of American cemetery, chatting with the French rider in both English and French switching when one of us struggled, and another pretty old town. Lots of tourists, more than we’ve seen to date even at Mont St. Michel, and the first mass of American accents we’d heard.
