Normandy D-Day Landings

Today we set off early for Mont Saint-Michel, a gravity-defying medieval monastery atop an island. Then, we continue to the historic town of Bayeux. The town’s splendid Norman Notre-Dame cathedral welcomes you to this historic town. Visit a Calvados distillery with tasting of the liqueur so loved by the GIs in 1944! Overnight Normandy

Drive to Pointe du Hoc, captured by the men of the U.S. 2nd Ranger Battalion.  We then travel down the Vierville Draw to the 29th Infantry Division sector of Omaha Beach.  After a walk on the beach, we drive east on the coast road then up the "Les Moulins" Draw to the U.S. Attend the D-Day wreath laying ceremony at the Military Cemetery at St. Laurent sur Mer and pay our respects. Visit the emotive Visitor Centre. See the only German coastal gun battery still sporting three of its four guns.  Overnight Normandy

Breakfast. Utah Beach and hear about the 4^th ID landings. We pass the Brécourt Manor captured by Company E of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Saint Mere Eglise to view its famed 13th century church with its Airborne stained-glass windows and the Airborne Museum. This afternoon we visit the La Fiere bridgehead and its "Iron Mike" U.S. Airborne statue. Drive through the 101st Airborne drop zones C and D then onto the Division command post. t. Overnight Normandy

Falaise and the Falaise Pocket, where the Allies began a move to encircle the Germans. Traverse the infamous Corridor of Death, where scenes of the routed Germany army were on display for several months as dead bodies and wreckage covered the landscape. Memorial de Montormel on Hill 262, where the Poles held off a desperate German counterattack, commemorates the closing of the pocket and offers an incredible view across the battlefield. Return to Paris.