Europe trip part 38

Monday October 22

 Today we went to the American cemetery near Omaha beach on the Normandy coast. Omaha was where the largest number of American soldiers landed, where many died and the cemetery had nearly 9,500 graves. First, we went to the museum besides the cemetery. The museum is one of many around the world that tell the story of American soldiers who fought overseas like in France.

The museum had lots of displays to read and a film that told me about the invasion which was very interesting. The cemetery overlooked the coast and it was very clean and well organized. It had a memorial to the dead soldiers with a map of how the invasion of the coast and through Normandy worked.

 We had lunch in a restaurant nearby and I had fish and chips, my first real meal for days. Later that afternoon, we headed back to Caen, had a cup of tea and walked 10 minutes to see the Abbey d’Homme, walked a bit more around the town, bought some groceries and then headed home for tea.

 Tuesday October 23

 Today we drove from Caen to Arras which took a bit longer than we expected. It was a bit of a boring drive at first as the weather was foggy – like pea soup! So we stuck to the motorway. For the last 100km or so, we took the country roads and saw some of the French countryside which was nice.

Mum and Dad made me do some maths and reading because I have a bit of catching up to do after being sick. When we arrived, we met a lovely French couple who owned the house and they showed us how everything worked.

 The sun came out and we decided to visit the nearby WWI Canadian monument and battlefield to have a look around. The monument is at Vimy ridge which was a high ridge that could see all the way to Belgium so it was an important part of France to win back from the Germans in 1917. The area was also important because it has a lot of coal and that would help the war effort. We took some photos and planned what we were going to do the next day.