BEYOND THE BEACHES
On the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, Anthony Peregrine presents an insider’s guide to the peacetime delights of Normandy
T EN years ago, around the 60th anniversary of D-Day, I stood with Josh, a young French Canadian, in Courseulles-sur-Mer, at the top of Juno Beach. Suddenly, he loped off, way down to the water’s edge. He stood in the shallows for a few moments, then came loping back, eyes gleaming.
“OK, that’s good,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to do it. It’s what my great-uncles did on D-Day. That’s why I travelled here. I think they’ll be happy, wherever they are.” I found I had something in my own eye too, and I’d only met the fellow the day before. I had a car and he didn’t, so I was giving him a lift along the landing beaches.
It’s difficult to overestimate the impact of the Normandy beaches. Obviously, it is impossible today to recreate 1944’s bowel-wrenching terror — barbed wire, mines on sticks, flying metal, screams, imminent obliteration — but only by visiting does one grasp the scale of the operation. Only by visiting might one begin to understand the courage needed, for instance, to scale the Pointe-du-Hoc — or simply to get out of the landing craft.
And only by visiting can one share in the mutual respect and friendliness that breaks out quite unexpectedly on former killing fields. Josh and I next went to the Juno Beach Centre. Though resembling a collection of giant sardine cans, the centre tells the Canadian story of DDay and World War 2 in general with verve.
Then we went for a beer, a salad and a seaside stroll. That’s another key thing about visiting the beaches: you need to go steady and build in some variety. Otherwise, you risk being overwhelmed or, worse, growing war-weary. You need to plan other stuff, too. It is, anyway, a good idea to see how fine a place a free Normandy is. There are many guides to D-Day Normandy on the 70th anniversary but here are a few places you might like to include on a visit.
I’d start by stopping in Le Havre because (a) that’s where the Portsmouth ferry arrives and (b) no one else does. They all blast straight through. They think of Le Havre as Stalingrad and, at first sight, they’re right. Flattened during the war, the great port town was put back together by Auguste Perret, “the poet of reinforced concrete”. He favoured straight lines, blocks and a very great deal of concrete. The town hall would have suited Ceaucescu. But take a little time and the overall effect becomes mesmerising. The town is bathed in light and space — as are the apartments, where Perret’s plans re-housed 80 000 homeless in tune with humane times.
Over the soaraway Pont de Normandie,
We, once conquered by William, have now set free the conqueror’s native land
Honfleur is, by contrast, as cute as kittens in a basket, all rickety streets, half-timbering and a storybook port with a corsair past. The Impressionists — Monet, Bazille, Boudin — were all here at one time or another, partly for the light and partly because this was the start of a newly fashionable coast. Thus they had a subject and, with all those rich Parisians, also a market.
They met up in Deauville, purpose-built as a nobs’ holiday resort 150 years ago. It remains a protectorate of palace hotels, broad avenues and imprints of stars, a spot where you’re never far from a Gucci outlet or a galloping horse. Spielberg, Clooney and Kidman have all been at the Normandie Barrière hotel during the town’s US Film Festival (this year, September 5-14), which may explain the prices.
At hand-shaking distance across the Touques estuary, Trouville is much older and fishier. It has a grand beach and many fantasy villas — the beau monde came here before Deauville was built, enticed by a cracking ad campaign: “For the slightest dizzy spell, doctors recommend a break in Trouville.” But it also has roots, a fish market and restaurants along the estuary, and rubbish collection by horse and cart.
Now inland to the Pays-d’Auge, along lanes as enticing as a dairymaid’s smile. They weave between high hedges, cider-apple orchards and pastures plump with cows and horses. There’s cider if you need it (you don’t: it’s a kids’ drink in adult clothes) and, more to the point, calvados. The apple brandy has moved on a bit since, as a veteran friend of mine told me, invading squaddies used it in their stoves. To see how far, call in on Christian Drouhin at Coudray-Rabut, near Pont-l’Evêque, or Pierre Huet at Cambremer, by Lisieux. A single glass contains seven apples, so regular drinking keeps the doctor away indefinitely. You might also bob into Lisieux itself. I can never decide whether the gigantic basilica, celebrating Saint Thérèse of that parish, is a Byzantine monster or massively uplifting. Perhaps you’d let me know.
Most certainly, villages like Beuvron-en-Auge and Crèvecoeur-en-Auge are as comely as anything in the Cotswolds, consisting mainly of flowers, timber-framed homes and restaurants which raise your cholesterol level even as you pass by. If a dish isn’t covered in butter, cream, cheese and alcohol, then the proper Norman isn’t eating.
The incurably active may assuage their guilt in Suisse Normande (“Norman Switzerland”), just to the southeast. The little region is no more like Switzerland than the Dales are like Bhutan but, around Clécy and Thury-Harcourt, it does rise to crags, rocky hills and the Orne gorges. There is a suitable amount of climbing, canoeing, hiking, riding and other ways of knocking oneself out in stirring surroundings ( otsuissenormande.e-monsite.com or clecy.fr ).
And so, via the Mémorial de Caen on the outskirts of Caen — by some way, France’s finest World War 2 museum — to Bayeux, by some way the best base for a break embracing war and peace. The first town to be freed after the landings, it was captured largely intact: the German garrison hoofed it as the Allies approached. So the 11th-century cathedral still lords it over tight streets and half-timbered commerce. The wandering is lovely.
And most of the D-Day landing sites — Lionsur-Mer, Courseulles, Arromanches, Colleville, Pointe-du-Hoc — are barely 40 minutes away, most rather less. Certainly, you will see the memorials and museums (the Musée-duDébarquement at Arromanches is particularly fine) but don’t omit, either, to amble the sands, build sand castles, eat ice cream, let your children run and play. The freedom to be carefree was one of the reasons for the fight.
You might then return to Bayeux, where the second war’s biggest Commonwealth cemetery brings order and tranquility to widespread slaughter. On the nearby memorial is written, in Latin: “We, once conquered by William, have now set free the conqueror’s native land.” The bombast exactly fails to capture the necessary tone, far better expressed on the tomb of Trooper AJ Cole: “The dearest daddy and husband in the world,” it says. “We will love you forever, darling.” This is the heart of the matter. You can go no further — and certainly not to the nearby Battle of Normandy museum, which is overstuffed and uninspired.
Visit, instead, the Bayeux tapestry for its riveting needle-work coverage of an earlier disagreement ( tapisserie-bayaux.fr ). Then dine well, perhaps at Le Pommier ( restaurantlepommier.com ). Depriving yourself would serve no purpose whatsoever.