Standing with Giants

[MooN]

this has been a long time coming as it is something that I have been wanting to do for a fair few years now. 

I originally planned this as a solo trip, but things change and a couple of mates tagged along, one for the whole thing and one ( + wife and dog) for the Normany part but not the "there and back" bit. 

With unstable spring weather and unsure of my own ability to ride km in a day and still be able or willing to set up a tent in shit weather, I booked what they call a "cyclo tent" in the municipal campsite in Bayeux. It cost me 90 odd € for the 3 nights and as it has é beds and my mate Manu came along Ionly paid half of it . It's a kind of semi rigid tent, and looks like this:  ( that's Manu in the pic with his RT1100

The campsite is well organised (but everybody's GPS sends them to the swimming pool and not thecamp site) well maintaine and equipped with new, clean and heated shower / toilet block. t's half an hours ride from any of the invasion beaches and all the main sites, i'd recommend it if you're thinking of going. 

The ride North from here on wednesday went almost without a hitch, the weather had changed radically for the better and I left home ataround 08h30. I met up with Manu as planned, at a petrol stationjust this side of Joigny on the N6. We then headed eastwards toward Montargis and Orleans, rounding Orleans to the south and then turning northeast towrds Chateaudun where we stopped for lunch. Top Tip for eating rapidly in France: Get to the restaurant by 12h00 at the latest (11:45 is better) cos the french feed from 12 to 2 and the ALL arrive, en masse at 12h00. We got there at 11h45 so were pretty much first in, first served and first out. as we left at 12:45 they were still queuing at the door and more were still arriving. It being a Looooooong weekend, the whole country and his significant other were on the roads (Including, much to my surprise a large number of citroen 2CV, many pulling caravans FFS! I failed to get a picture of this, as I was too busy trying to not fall of my bike from the surprise!)

From chateaudun we moved ever north and east, through Nogent le Rotrou, Mortagne au Perche, Sees, Argentan and Falaise (not only famous for the "Falaise Pocket" but also the home of William the conquerer, whos chateau is still visitable (looks like I'm going to have to come back here...)

We stopped fro a break and a coffee in Falaise, as I had planned the only autoroute usage of the trip from here to Bayeux, as it would be getting on fot rushhour as we approached Caen at this stage we'd been on the road for nearly 7 hoursand I just wanted to get to the end. From Falaise north, the Autoroute is a "voie rapide" similar the the autoroutes in Britanny so no toll, but with a speed limit of 110kph rather than the 130 of the toll roads, but that's fine as the tiger is probably at hermost comfortable at this speed. The traffic around Caen was bad, and I had to resort to lane splitting with is "tolerated" inFrance and codified but not legally. It isnot something I'm very comfortable with as I never need to filter in the part of the world I live in, but most of the drivers being Parisien, it was surprisingly easy, you just sit on the white line between the two outer lanes and the cars open a passage for you like Moses parting the red sea! 

My ride plan had us arriving at the campsite at 17:15 and we pulled up at the gate at 17: 14 which had the other couple who were waiting for us accusing me of witchcraft (the french are not good at punctuality, for the most part...)

we strolled into Bayeux for a feed that evening, and back along the river

Up and out early the next morning wanting to beatthe crowds. We're one month away from the 80th anniversary celebrations and its a bank holiday weekend of 5 days AND the weather is glorious...

1st up; the Merville Battery and museum, you can look it up for specifics.  It was aninteresting visit and the information dotted around the site was very instructive and complete.  The Dakota parked in front of the Hangar is known as the "SNAFU special" so I had to translate that for all and sundy as it was the only thing not translated on the information boards .

Again, we were almost first in, but by the time we laft, the car park was full and there was a 15minute queue at the entrance to the museum. We moved back down the estuary and river to Bénouville and the site of Pegasus Bridge. I believe the first objective of the invasion and the first attack by glider born troops. The 3 glider pilots in question managed to place their machine so perfectly after a 5 mile glide that it is still today considered to be one of the greates feats of airmanship of the war.

The original bridge has been replaced, but is still intact and the museum has been built around it

They also have built a scale model of one of the Horta gliders used, from the original plans. I was so overawed by the sheer balls of any of the blokes who dared to actually fly inone of them, that i forgot to take any pictures. None of the original gliders have survived intact. This tank did though (built a little moe solidly I think) Iwas intrigued by the graduations painted on the turret. Aparrently it was to enable an exterior spotter to give precise firing directions to the gunner inside. 

 

We ate at the restaurant "Les 3 Planeurs" right beside the bridge, good food and reasonably priced. Again, we managed to keep one step ahead of the crowds.

By the time we got the "The Grand Bunker" at Ouistreham things were getting crowded. This bunker was a command post with fire direction for the germanshore batteries and was not constructed with the ease of movement of hundreds of tourists inmind... interesting though, and an extensive collection of parephanalia, from an original landing craft to communication equippement and telemetry gear for ranging guns. 

this is hand canked air filtration system in case of gas attack

The rest of the days activities, I had planned to be outdoors, as I struggle to deal with crowds in small spaces, so we moved on to The british memorial at Ver sur Mer and this is where I got the title "Standing with Giants"  you canlook that up too https://www.standingwithgiants.co.uk/#:~:text=The 1%2C475 giants reflect the,April 2024 - 31st August 2024.

you can see the remains of the Mulberry harbours at Arromanches in the background. 

moving mong the silouettes, reading the history, the phrase "standing among giants" becomes achingly apt. 

Having been somewhat subdued by the Ver sur Mer memorial we moved on to Arromanches, cos I wanted to see the remains of the Mulbery harbours, the dog wanted to run on th sand and we all wanted an ice cream or cold beer... or possibly both!  The tide was pretty much out so good timing. 

 

What with the sun and the sear air and all the rest I slept prety soundly that night.

Next day, up and at'em early again tobe amongthe first visitors to the Us cemetery at Colville sur Mer. If I remember correctly, this was the first US military cemetary of the war and is the larges US military Cemetary outside the US with 9433 soldiers buried here and the names of a further 1500 odd names of soldiers lost but not found or identified. As with all such places it is very sobering. The organisation is impressive and clearly top notch. The parking attendant told us they were expecting 10,000 visitors per day leading up to the 80th anniversary with apeak of 12.000 at the weekends and 14 to 15,000 on the -th June. They have car parking for about half that... needless to say, there was a vehicle queue of about 2 miles when we left. 

 

we had a quick look at Omaha beach and moved on to the Point du Hoc https://www.abmc.gov/Pointe-du-Hoc

some of the bunkers have survived almot unscathed but the ground has beenlaft pretty much as it was in '44 and the depth and size of the craters gives some inkling into the destructive power of a battery of 14 inch naval guns (of the USS texas I believe) The fact that the rangers managed to scale those cliffs, locate the guns (that had beenmoved), take the battery and hold it for tw days untill support arrived, absolutely beggars belief. 

Grandcamp Maisey for lunch, where Manu's bike managed to punch a hole right throgh the pavement  with its side stand and fall over into the road... my helpful comments about just another german making holes in the Normandy villages were, surprisingly, not appreciated...

we wpent most of the afternoon at the mairee sorting out damage reports and insurance claims for both pavement and bike. the damage o the bike was, fortuately, only cosmetic and the third member of our party being an insurance agent, obviously helped in avoiding any unneccessary palaver.

Having lost a lare part of the afternoon in this manner we sadly had to pass over the museum at Omaha beach, contenting ourselves with a visit to the beach itself, or part of it, but it nowbeing high y=tide there was not much of it to se so we pushed on to St Mere Eglise, with it's iconic 3john Steel" parachutist dummy hangng from the church, as per the film "The Longest Day". The event did effectively happen in real life, though somewhat differently from the film. The village manages to generate 200,000 visitors a year from a rubber dummy and some parachute materiel. It was the only time during the trip that I thought things had been allowed to get a little out of contro and border on the distateful.

 

 

[MooN]

the ride home the next day was only eventful insofar as my knee was was so painful that I had to stop every hour and thenevery half hour to walk the pain off.

 

 we did a little over 1400km in the 4 days and it was clearly toomuch for my poor failing carcass. I did feed it properly though 

 

[XTreme]

Amazing report Chris......and this pic is incredible!

[MooN]

13 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Amazing report Chris......and this pic is incredible!

Yeah I tried to do a panoramic pic of the statues cos there are 1475 of them between the monument and the beach, this photo shows I gues less than a quarter of them. It does really make it real. 

[boboneleg]

Brilliant stuff Chris , looks like you had much better weather than I did but with that comes crowds.  Nice tip about arriving for lunch at 11.45 , I shall have to try and remember that one.

Even though your knee gave you grief I'm sure you enjoyed the trip 

[Buckster]

Great to see you back, I missed your reports.

[YamaHead]

Great Ride & report Chris....no to mention a bit of a history lesson to go w/ it.

[Pedro]

As always, good stuff!

the boats on the water give the beach pictures a sense of what it took to get from there to proper land across the beach. 

 

Your ride reports and @Tango's are making me look forward to going to France.

[Catteeclan]

Excellent Chris. Brought back some memories, be nice to go back again.

[Saul]

18 hours ago, XTreme said:

Amazing report Chris......and this pic is incredible!

Just had chance to sit down and read this.  Bloody interesting report.  I would love to do something similar.  Thanks for taking the time to put it together.  

[Tango]

Excellent report, Chris. It really is quite moving to see in real life and get the perspective of just what an amazing feat of bravery this all commemorates! Great that you had nice weather for it too. I fully plan to go back again at some point and explore a bit further. I also want to visit Oradour-sur-Glane at some point too.

[Tango]

The scale of the Mulberry Harbour components!

[Six30]

great report 

[MooN]

On 14/05/2024 at 14:40, Tango said:

Excellent report, Chris. It really is quite moving to see in real life and get the perspective of just what an amazing feat of bravery this all commemorates! Great that you had nice weather for it too. I fully plan to go back again at some point and explore a bit further. I also want to visit Oradour-sur-Glane at some point too.

I did a ride report from Ouradour as well a few years ago. You should go, but don't go with a bunch of mates, it really isn't that sort of place. 

[Tango]

1 hour ago, MooN said:

I did a ride report from Ouradour as well a few years ago. You should go, but don't go with a bunch of mates, it really isn't that sort of place. 

I'm Billy no mates anyway, Chris!