Normandy D-Day Beaches

The Five Allied Landing Beaches Of 6 June 1944 With Their Museums, Batteries And War Cemeteries, Including The Normandy American Cemetery At Colleville Sur Mer · Bayeux, Normandy

On 6 June 1944 Allied forces landed on five beaches along roughly 80 kilometres of the Normandy coast, the start of the campaign to liberate western Europe. The American beaches, Utah and Omaha, lie to the west; Gold and Sword were British, and Juno was Canadian. Today they are wide sandy beaches with holiday villages behind them, and the history is held in the cemeteries, museums, gun batteries and memorials strung along the coast. The Normandy American Cemetery above Omaha Beach, with its rows of white crosses and stars of David, is the most visited site and is free. Pointe du Hoc keeps its bomb craters and bunkers on a clifftop, Arromanches still has the concrete remains of an artificial Mulberry harbour offshore, and Longues-sur-Mer has German guns still in their casemates. Bayeux, with its famous tapestry, and Caen, with its Memorial museum, make the best bases. The sites are spread out and need a car or a guided tour. Around the June anniversary the area is very busy, and roads are closed for ceremonies.

Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno and Sword beaches, Calvados and Manche, Bayeux, Normandy, France

The beaches themselves, and most outdoor memorials, are open at all times and free. The Normandy American Cemetery is open daily except 25 December and 1 January, with shorter hours in winter; flags are lowered in a short ceremony near closing time, which is worth staying for. Pointe du Hoc follows similar seasonal hours to the cemetery. The museums, including the Juno Beach Centre, the Utah Beach museum, the Airborne Museum at Sainte-Mère-Eglise, the Arromanches museums and the Caen Memorial, keep their own hours, open longer in summer and often close for part of January for maintenance; several close on certain winter weekdays, so confirm each before driving to it. The Bayeux Tapestry has been closed for a major museum renovation and was scheduled to travel for an exhibition abroad, so confirm whether it can be seen before you plan around it. Around 6 June roads close for official ceremonies, accommodation sells out months ahead and access to some sites is restricted on the day itself. Guided tours usually run as half-day or full-day trips with fixed pickup times from Bayeux or Caen.

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