A sad sad day...

Day 12 - 19th October 2006
We were supposed to have a nice, leisurely breakfast in the hotel garden this morning, but everyone woke up late, so it was gobble and go! We planned to cover 3 places today - the DDay beaches, the American Cemetery and the Caen Memorial, before catching our train back to Paris in the evening.

It was almost noon when we arrived at the 360degree cinema set at the top of the cliffs of the Omaha Beach. A poignant documentary about the DDay landings was to set the mood for contemplating the vast stretch of beaches before us.

We were warned by the ticket counter attendant that the machine gun firing during the movie might alarm the kids, so we stuffed their ears with tissue paper and made them wear their beanies to drown out the noise. Terelle, however, was still frightened by the relentless explosions and firing so we had to take her outside the theatre, lest she get scarred for life by the violence and bloodshed.

It was a gloomy day, much akin to the sobre mood of the beaches. The sky was overcast and a biting wind was whipping about all of us.

Terelle trying to catch the wind rushing at her face...

Solemn monuments of crosses and statues dotted the bleak cliffs, like sentinels silently reminding visitors of the tragedy that happened there so many years ago. It was such a sad place, so timeless in its memories, that it seemed like a travesty to even talk loudly or laugh aloud.

Even Terelle seemed affected by the aura of the place, as she thoughtfully contemplates the Omaha Beach

Kara weeping as she lays a flower down for the men who paid the price of freedom

The exact spot where almost 3000 American soldiers died on June 6 1944

View of Omaha Beach from inside an intact German artillery bunker

Note how the bunker faces not towards the ocean, but down the beach. This allowed multiple bunkers to create deadly crossfire patterns that caused high numbers of Allied casualties on D-Day.

I read this from a coffee table book we purchased from the souvenir shop; Im a sucker for these bits of information that can actually allow you to have a glimpse of what might have happened. You can just imagine being there and seeing all the chaos, fear and carnage that fateful day. But then maybe its just me...I have a propensity for the dramatic...

General Terelle atop the humble shoulders of Private Ryan

Yes mdm! I will go through hell and highwater for you!

Remnants of bunkers and pillboxes scattered all over the cliff

We rushed off to visit the American Cemetery next; it was here that the ending scene of the movie "Saving Private Ryan" was shot. If you thought that that final scene was moving, it is nothing compared to the feeling of actually standing there amidst the 3000 tombstones of the valiant soldiers. I have watched that movie 3 times and each time i still cried buckets, so standing there really evoked some pretty strong emotions.

It was a peaceful and beautiful final resting place, with the tombstones laid out in marble crosses for the Christians and stars for the Jews. Each tombstone bore the name of the soldier who bravely gave his life, his age and his regiment.

And for those whose remains could never be identified, the tombstone reads:

"Here rests in honored glory, a comrade in arms, known but to God"

The girls trying their best to decipher the words on the tombstones

An information board near the beach that depicted the DDay landings from air and sea

I would have loved to spend more time in this peaceful place, to do some quiet reflecting and maybe a bit of writing, but alas we had to rush off again. The deadline for the return of the minibus was pressing near and we had to return it at the raillway station before heading for the Caen Memorial.

We would have been able to make the Memorial if not for getting lost en route to the rental office. We drove around the wrong side of Caen for a good hour before finally getting the right directions to the railway station. Hubby and his navigator, Caleb concluded that French maps were also useless...

By then the skies had started to pour; we were tired, hungry and wet...so the thought of negotiating the Caen public transport and carting our luggages halfway around town with the babies in tow became very unwelcome indeed. Eventually we opted to change the timing of our train ticket and take an earlier train back to Paris.

Luck was not on our side that day. Due to some electrical fault, our early train stalled for 3 hours out in the middle of no where. As the hours ticked by, our patience wore thinner and thinner. Cursing the inefficient French for their lousy train systems, we really wondered if it would have been a better idea to have spent one more night in Normandy.

No1 disgruntled passenger on board

We had done everything we possibly could to entertain the kids! We had sung songs, plyed them with biscuits, taken walks outside the train...some kind passengers even gave them some fruits cos they thought they were hungry!

A rainbow in the background..there's hope!

The train company compensated all of us with packed dinners but it was nothing compared to the steaming hot Chinese dinner we envisaged had we reached Paris at 7pm.

We finally arrived in Paris at 11pm, 6 hours from the time we left Caen. Exhausted and famished, we still had to negotiate the Metro to get back to the hotel.

It was a sad sad day indeed...

Way past everyone's bedtime!