Beside the Seaside

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In Which I End Up, On The Beach, House Red In Hand

August 10, 2007 by Mike

Hermanville

I finish the day sitting on the beach. A beach, remember, that saw tens of thousands of Allied troops launch the liberation of Europe 63 years ago. Tonight, infused with the gentle pinks of a warm sunset, nothing could be more peaceful. I'm sitting on a wooden bench facing out to sea. Behind me are the elegant 19th century villas of the local bourgeoisie. A chill falls as the sun recedes, and I snuggle up to myself for warmth. The sea is very still tonight. I have a good book and a bad bottle of wine. The slats of the bench are just the right size to hold my plastic cup.

People are strolling past. Not very many, not enough to break the peaceful rhythm of my evening. A couple of young families. A mother and son walking their dog. An old man and an old woman, hand in hand along the seafront. It cheers me when I realise they were all walking westwards as the sun set, facing that dazzling symphony of pinks, and that they're all walking eastwards as an intense darkness falls, towards the port of Ouistreham as the car ferry arrives from Portsmouth, lit up as bright as a Christmas tree and implausibly elegant.

--

I needed to unwind. I set off to 'do' the D-Day Landings today. (Sorry. The idea of 'doing' a place -- "I did Thailand in my gap year, yaah" is my absolute pet hate.)

At Hermanville the Norwegian flag flies alongside those of Britain and France. By coincidence, I'm staying at the exact location where the small Norwegian contingent landed, and where they have been honoured.

To Arromanches to see the Landings Museum, the multi-screen film presentation at Arromanches360 and the remains of the artificial 'Mulberry' harbour that proved crucial to the success of the Landings. (Much Nazi thinking revolved around the Allies' need for a port to bring in troops and supplies after the initial landings, so they concentrated on defending Calais, Dunkerque, Le Havre, Cherbourg etc. It was Churchill's masterstroke to suggest building a port in Britain, towing it across the Channel and placing it off a beach. Actually, 'suggest' isn't the right word. He decreed it -- and dared his engineers to even *think* of saying it might not be possible.

In fact, although I'd recommend it to anyone, that 360 degree film left me feeling queasy. Not the subject matter, though it seeks to portray how the Landings actually looked and sounded. No, but it did make me feel sea-sick looking at all those screens. What a wuss! What would I have been like in the battle itself?

I tried to walk it off along the hilly dunes overlooking the beach. A beautiful beach. Peaceful. Then, turning inland I saw that the hilltop was no longer defended by Nazi artillery but by massed ranks of mobile homes. Scary!

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I got back on the bike and rode on.

Somehow, the sign outside the Centre Juno Beach ("The Only Canadian Museum On The D-Day Beaches") fails to excite me enough to entice me inside. Can't think why?

I reached the end of Omaha Beach -- as the town of Grandcamp-Maisy will always be known, even though Grandcamp-Maisy is such a luvverly name. Then, breaking a cardinal rule, I ventured five whole miles inland to the cathedral city of Bayeux. The tapestry is unmissable. Some of the exhibits that flesh out the visit were closed for repairs but no matter. This is one of those moments where something so famous actually lives up to the hype. (Which leads me to mourn the way 'celebrity' has become so devalued these days, but I'll shut up before I start coming over all Daily Mail.

The city of Bayeux is pretty too - the buildings all shades of sand. But I miss the sea, and head back to Hermanville and that bottle of house red.

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