Still referred to by their wartime codenames of Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah, the poignant D-Day landing beaches remain one of the most visited parts of Normandy. Now only evident in the bullet pitted cliffs, it was here on 6 June 1944 that 100,000 soldiers lost their lives in what was described as the longest day of the Second World War.
Lose yourself in thought amongst the symmetrical rows of the serene, impeccably kept American Cemetery with its 9000 white crosses and Stars of David, or peer into machine gun placements abandoned in the cliffs. Stroll around the battery located at Longues sur Mer between Gold and Omaha Beach, the only one remaining with cannons intact, or stand on the windswept shore of Juno beach and study a sunken Canadian tank that was discovered in the 1970s.
- Visit the insightful entrenchments and bomb craters of Pointe du Hoc