No offence meant but ..........................

[LieselVentouse]

who would honestly want to go on holiday to the D-Day landings in Normandy?

just remembered on that holiday our grandparents left us on the beach (very quiet) to go and get the food out of the car (2 minutes away). me and my sister were playing in the sand and a man arrived, sat on the rocks behind us and took all his clothes off and had a wank right there looking at us. at the time we were laughing to each other about it, thinking oh dear silly man putting his suncream on his willy and it's going all big. now i look back and think oh dear god. grandparents arrived back, the man ran off. told grandma the silly man took all his clothes off. we left the beach, didn't eat the food. they never left us anywhere again, ever.

so if you do go, watch out for that!

My bil He goes around the war graves every year with his wife and daughter who is now 15. I always feel it must be so dull for her, they go on one of those coach tours full of OAPs and that is the only holiday they have

I'd love to go on an expedition like this and will one day.

I would find it quite interesting. Then again, I'm the kind of person goes to visit to war museum when they go on holiday to Malta...

Years ago, I went with my mothers school to Normandy with a class of year 6's. It was a lovely place and very thought provoking for the kids. Agreed, it doesn't sound like a bundle of laughs, but every child and adult on that trip had a wonderful time. We are actually considering it this year for a camping trip with our DD who is 11. I know she'll love it.

lapin, there are tiny cemeteries like that dotted all over Normandy - I think from locals burying the dead respectfully, and the burial grounds being subsequently adopted by the regiments.

It is deeply moving to see the headstones, especially as so many of the dead were under 20.

You also sometimes see, driving around, plaques in remembrance of local Resistance fighters killed on that spot

My father would.

We've been to Thiepval, with three young children in tow, and it was very moving.

I've also been to Oradour-sur-Glane, which is very intereting.

I know about Oradour but have never been, urb. One of the worst atrocities in France I think?

My grandad did. But he also fought on that front in WWII. His younger brother, a POW of the Germans for 3 years, went with him.

They really enjoyed their visit and got to pay their respects to some friends they lost.

It brought them a lot of peace.

I think so.

I was a teenager when I went (French exchange student) so memory's a bit hazy, but still goosepimply when I think about the visit iykwim?

Sorry, that was about Oradour.

Apparently it's a really profound experience.

It certainly was for my grandfather and his brother.

They went with a group from their veterans club and whilst they had a great time, I think the trip was really good for them spiritually, too.

Went as a teenager with school. Still remeber what a profound experience it was the cemetry's were especially very moving.

I've just been googling and one of the sites I found said that it was the wrong Oradour - the Maquis attack that caused the revenge killings was at Oradour-sur-Vayres not Oradour-sur-Glane -

I've been and loved it, also to the battlefields along the somme in france and belgium. Very moving and an important part of our history.

Sound like we have been to the same places Penelope.
As for the American cemetary at Omaha I would defy anyone to go there, see the graves and not be moved by the ultimate sacrifice those soldiers made, 3000 miles from home.
If you get the chance, read a book called the Bedford Boys, it is about a group of soldiers from a town called Bedford in the USA. Most of them joined the National Guard to escape poverty and ended up being concripted as a result and gave their lives for a war three thousand miles away.
Normandy though has a lot of things going for it, good food, wine, beaches etc and it's all a three or four hour drive from Calais.

Xenia - not being sexist at all but I think you will notice most of these threads do say "my grandfather/father/brother went"