Normandy - (Fall 2025) - Day 5
After a week in France it was finally time to do some laundry. We woke up early and walked to the local laundromat.
Boulangerie des Ducs
For the wash cycle, we walked to a pastry shop to get some sandwiches for breakfast. This was the same shop the sold the little chocolate pigs I tried earlier in the week.
La Terrasse
For the dry cycle, there was a little cafe just around the corner from the laundromat. Turns out cafe culture is great for doing laundry as it is a great way to kill the time.
Utah Beach
The next beach on the D-Day rounds was Utah Beach, the westernmost of the beach landing sites. American forces landed here and this beach was won more easily by the Allies than Omaha and was far less bloody. By luck they landed in a lesser defended area of the beach and were able to get more armor on the beach and the bombardments were also more successful.
There was a racing horse farm nearby and this morning the horses were training by running in the water on the beach with carriages. Again, the beach is not developed so you can still picture what the landing would have looked like back in the day.
Musée du Débarquement de Utah Beach
The museum here focused of course on the Utah part of the landing and on the American and German forces that were fighting here. There were plenty of displays of the German gear as well.
One part of the museum had a complete small bomber plane in a hangar on display.
I learned in one of the displays that in order to have a museum like this, the French actually had to procure the land. The local mayor at the time had led the effort to build the museum to honor the Allied troops.
We did not go in this place but the Le Roosevelt restaurant is just off the beach that is has its walls filled with photos and memorabilia. I assume it is named for Teddy Roosevelt Jr (the ex-president’s son) who was a general and led part of the Utah landing.
Major Richard Winters Memorial
On the drive in and out from Utah Beach you go past this memorial of Winters made famous from the Band of Brothers series.
He was paratrooper so he was not at Utah but landed the night before by air.
Sainte-Mère-Église
Sainte-Mère-Église is a small town inland from Utah Beach where many of the American paratroopers landed the early morning of D-Day. There are a couple of streets of restaurants and shops along with some monuments. It was fairly hard to find parking in town on this rainy off-season day so I’m not sure where people park in the high season.
The church in the middle of town displays a dummy paratrooper hanging off to the side of the church replicating the event that happened that night when a trooper got caught on while landing. The church also has a stained glass window featuring paratroopers to honor the soldiers.
Airborne Museum
The Airborne Museum in Sainte-Mère-Église is a large museum made up of several buildings. The displays of course were focused on the airborne troops.
There was a building that showed all of the different ways that the airborne soldiers were geared up during the war alongside a full sized plane. Another building showed the gliders that were used.
There was section that simulated being in a plane on the way to the D-Day drop. There were displays that depicted how the fighting in the drop zones looked and also a section that discussed the French resistance prior to the landing.
This was one of the better museums in terms size and detail.
Sainte-Marie-du-Mont
On the way back to Bayeux, we stopped in this small town which was also a landing site and some heavy fighting took place on its outskirts. Some of the action depicted in Band of Brothers happened here.
There was a church at its center and I believe that every church in every town in Normandy is called Notre Dame.
Bar du 6 Juin
We stopped in this small cafe because it looked interesting and had its own little museum in the back full of left over material from the war. It is mostly stuff just stacked together but still interesting.
I was hoping for some snacks but they didn’t have much. They had these little pre-cooked pots that you could order and they would heat up. We chose the cassoulet and it actually wasn’t bad.