Normandy - April 30 & May 1, 2010

We took the time to drive along the coastline and just get an overview of the sites.  A large portion of our day was spent visiting the D-Day Landings and the Battle of Normandy.  After crossing north from Honfleur to Le Havre on the magnificent Normandy Bridge, we made our way to Dieppe.

The Battle of Dieppe, during WWII, was an Allied attack on the German occupied port of Dieppe on the northern coast of France on August 19, 1942.  Over 6,000 infantrymen, predominantly Canadian, tried to seize and hold the port.  No major objectives were accomplished.  A total of 3,623 of the 6,086 men who made it to shore were either killed, wounded, or captured (almost 60%).

These photos were taken of Dieppe today, the last being a view from the château and museum above the town.

 

Normandy is of course apple country.  The apple orchards are exqusite dressed in their spring blossoms, although the weather is less than perfect.  Still, one can almost taste the Calvados that will one day be the product of such abundance. 

Some of the names of the towns we drove through will sound familiar to you.  La Côte d'Albâtre - the Alabaster Coast - gets its name from the chalky cliffs and milky waters that characterize the Normandy coastline between Le Havre and Le Tréport.  It is best known for the Falaise d'Aval west of Etretat, eroded into an arch.  The author Guy de Maupassant, born near Dieppe in 1850, compared these cliffs to an elephant dipping its trunk into the sea.  More known towns were Lisieux (as in Ste. Thérèse de Lisieux of the Carmelites), Évereux (as in Les Soeurs d'Évereux), Alençcon, Laval, and finally - Thouars!   

~ AM