From Paris: Private Full-Day Tour of the D-Day Beaches

What's Included

Meeting and pickup

Itinerary

• 1
  Pointe du Hoc

  On the morning of June 6, 1944, 225 U.S. Army Rangers were given what many considered a suicide mission: scale a 30-meter cliff face under withering enemy fire, and destroy a German gun battery that threatened both Omaha and Utah Beach. Of the 225 Rangers who began the assault, fewer than 90 were still standing two days later. Today, Pointe du Hoc is the most preserved D-Day battlefield in Normandy. The shell craters are still there. The concrete bunkers sit cracked open by Allied bombardment. The German gun emplacements still point toward the Channel. Nothing has been tidied up or landscaped. It looks, with uncomfortable accuracy, like a battlefield. There is no better place to begin.

  1 hour • Admission ticket free
• 2
  Omaha Beach

  Omaha was the killing ground of D-Day. The American forces who landed here — the 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions — faced cliffs, open beach, and heavily fortified German positions with clear lines of fire down to the waterline. The losses in the first hours were catastrophic. By the end of June 6, approximately 2,000 Americans had been killed, wounded, or were missing on this beach alone. Today Omaha is wide and quiet, edged with dunes, the sea calm in the distance. The scale of the beach — nearly six kilometres of open sand — is the first thing that strikes you. The second is the silence. Your driver will give you time to walk it and feel the weight of that silence for yourself.

  1 hour • Admission ticket free
• 3
  Cimetiere Americain de Colleville-sur-Mer

  The cemetery sits on the bluff above Omaha Beach, looking west toward America. 9,387 graves. White marble crosses and Stars of David arranged in perfect rows across 70 acres of manicured lawn. Each one a name, a rank, a state, a date. The Wall of the Missing bears 1,557 more names — soldiers whose bodies were never recovered from the sea or the sand. The memorial chapel, the bronze statue of youth rising from the water, the overlook above the beach where everything becomes clear at once — this is one of the most moving places in the world. Allow the full hour. Do not rush it. The on-site museum is excellent and free with cemetery admission — allow extra time if you want to go through it properly.

  1 hour • Admission ticket free
• 4
  Arromanches-les-Bains

  Arromanches is the stop that surprises people most. On June 7, 1944 — the day after D-Day — Allied engineers began constructing two prefabricated artificial harbours off the Normandy coast. They were called Mulberry harbours, and they were one of the most audacious feats of military engineering in history: floating concrete caissons towed across the Channel and assembled into working port facilities that supplied the Allied forces for months. The American harbour at Omaha was destroyed in a storm two weeks after D-Day. The British harbour at Arromanches survived — and parts of it are still there today, visible from the beach at low tide, rising from the sea like the ruins of an ancient civilisation. The D-Day Museum in Arromanches tells the full story of the harbours and the Normandy campaign in exceptional detail.

  1 hour • Admission ticket free

Additional info

• Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
• Service animals allowed
• Public transportation options are available nearby
• Specialized infant seats are available
• Suitable for all physical fitness levels

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