church

The door to our hotel room in Arromanches was approximately 10-15 feet away from the local church. The church, like all the buildings in the town, was a historical site and was built many years before the D-day landings. During the d-days landings it had been shelled and was then subsequently used as a mortuary after the town was taken the American forces. Some years later it was restored and is still used as a church. The bell tower was also restored and everyday at 7am it rings with all its glory.

Although the church bells rang at 7am on Thursday morning both Amanda and I did not mind the absurdly loud bells. After all these bells have been ringing since before the war and were still ringing to this day. I saw it as a symbol, letting the world know that the town had survived and will continue to survive (maybe I looked to deep into it). On Friday morning, however, when the bells rang at 7am I wanted to see if the 50cal gun on the beach still worked. The first morning is novelty the second morning is annoying ;)

Thursday was reserved for Mont. St. Michel and Omaha beach. We were now up and ready to go.

We hopped in our car and headed out of Arromanches. Arromanches is a small town of about 500 that was established thousands of years ago and the roads reflected it. Roads were the width of a single lane American road but yet were two lanes AND included parking on BOTH sides. The cars park half way on the street and half way on the sidewalk. It was quite fun to through the town. Eventually we made it out of the town and we headed down the highway towards our first destination. Mont. St. Michel.

Mont. St. Michel was a short few hour drive from Arromanches. The road weaved through the western France countryside which was absolutely beautiful. The scenery looked similar to central Oregon. It was very green and had many crops growing of which most were Wheat, lettuce, cabbage, flowers and other vegetation that I did not recognize.

The last stretch of road to Mont. St. Michel is an elevated ? mile stretch of road leading to the front gates of the castle. The castle is situated on a temporary? Island. I say temporary because when the tide is in it is an island (outside of the modern road) but when the tide is out it is not surrounded by water at all. Mont. St. Michel is situated on a piece of beach that is subjected to the largest tide swings in the world. The tide raises and lowers by over 14 meters and goes outs about 15km!! Additionally the tide can shift from low tide to full high tide in just a few hours. There are signs all over the beach warning of the huge tide swings and of the high probability of quick sand (created by the massive tide swings). We did not stay long enough to watch the tide come in, unfortunately.

The castle was awesome. I can not write much about it however because it really is just your basic castle on a grand scale (which is the best part about it). The pictures do some justice to it however, so have a look. Think Disneyland castle, only real ;)

I wrote this entire journal entire about Omaha beach on my palm pilot. I, however, do not feel like posting it at this point. I will attempt to summarize my experience, however.

Omaha beach is immense and upon entering the grounds you are immediately overwhelmed. I silently walked the grounds and thought of my grandparents the entire time (and the stories that my grandmother has told me). We were on the grounds for about thirty minutes and the entire time the intense emotions I felt were welled up in my throat and I although I didn?t cry it would have only taken a very small trigger to start the tears pouring down my face. There are no words to describe the emotions you feel nor can pictures do the memorial justice.