• Package 1 – Full day tour US beaches
  
  

– Visit of St Mére-Eglise: strategically situated on the main N13 highway to Cherbourg and only a few miles away from the coast, this farming community became the very center of the huge airborne operation (with 15.000 U.S paratroopers) that started during the night before D-day.

– Airborne Museum: built at the location where stood a house that was on fire during the night before D-day, this museum has been gathering an amazing collection of memorabilia, in particular in the form of donations from the veterans themselves.

– Utah Beach: closest to the Germans around Cherbourg and quite separated from the other beaches, it could have been a disaster. Utah was rather lightly defended and had the great privilege to be protected by the American paratroopers (who had been in the area for several hours already).
A quick stop at German cemetery that was originally started as an American cemetery in 1944 (for both Americans and Germans), after the war this cemetery became the largest German one in Normandy with over 21.000 buried here.

– Pointe du Hoc: one of the largest German coastal batteries with six guns. Being of 6-inch caliber and of a range of about 10 miles, these cannons would be a threat to both Omaha and Utah beaches. Thanks to the first help of a group of locals to make this incredible site a place of memory, it has been well preserved since, with its monuments and a number of bunkers and also bomb craters all over this 30-acre battlefield.

– Omaha Beach: the most famous and most difficult of the five D-day beaches. It took the highest casualties, due in particular to its topography: it was the only beach with high ground just beyond.

– US cemetery: the Normandy American Cemetery is the final resting place for 9,387 Americans. It covers 172 acres and is an actual battleground as it overlooks the “Easy Red” sector of Omaha Beach. Soldiers of all ranks honored here were buried after the war was over on their families’ request.

Your guide will give you time on your own at the end, to either stay longer in the cemetery or save time for the Visitor Center that was opened in 2007 by the American Battle Monuments Commission and was designed to put the D-Day invasion of June 1944.

• Package 2 – Half day tour Canadian Sector
  
  

– Visit of the Juno Center: this museum, the only Canadian one in Normandy, was first opened in 2003 so as to commemorate the contributions and sacrifices of Canadian soldiers during the liberation of Europe in WW2. Divided in seven parts, it explains what Canada was before the war started, how the country turned completely toward the war effort, the different Canadian campaigns in Europe and the total human cost.

– Graye/Courseule: western part of the assault on Juno Beach, three sectors were given to different regiments to attack: Canadian Scottish / Royal Winnipeg Rifles/ Regina Rifles. The troops landed on either side of the Seulles river and the small fishing village of Courseulles was liberated in the afternoon.

– Bernieres/St-Aubin: on this eastern side of Juno Beach, two other infantry regiments attacked: the Queen’s Own Rifles and the North Shore. At Bernières, where La Chaudière Regiment later landed, is located the main monument close to the famous big Norman house that is in so many D-day pictures, and which still permanently flies a Canadian flag.

– Canadian Cemetery: located between Bény and Reviers, inland from Juno Beach on top of the little hill that overlooks the coast, this cemetery is beautifully maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. It is the final resting place of 2,043 Canadians. The entrance is decorated with four maples and the Stone of Remembrance. At the center of the graveyard is the Cross of Sacrifice, surrounded by the limestone headstones (all of which have recently been replaced).

– Enjoy a visit of the Abbaye d’Ardenne, beautiful Norman Abbey from the 12th century. A number of Canadian prisoners were brought here and executed on June 7th and 8th.