Honeymoon 2006

We rented our car from Avis at Gare St Lazare. Soon we were immersed in the Paris traffic madness. The briefest of pauses found us swarmed by motorcycles, we felt like the S.P.E.C.T.R.E. assassins were looking for 007.	The car was a straight drive Corolla, diesel powered. As we hit our first roundabout we quickly learned that traffic lanes are non-existent. They don't even waste money on painted lines. Find a spot and go for it, hope the next car blinks.
Somehow we made our way out to the A13, the French equivalent of our interstates. 130km/hr speed limit - and a Grande cup of coffee isn't the same as back home at Starbucks	Standing on the coast at Arromanches-les-Bains was a sobering experience, as we realized this ground was paid for with the lives of our countrymen. In the distance you can see the remains of the Mulberry Harbor, an artificial harbor towed across the channel and used by Allied forces to unload supplies and reinforcements
Narrow roads, often hemmed in by stone walls centuries old, made each village a picturesque discovery	View from the top of one of the four German gun emplacements at Longues-sur-Mer. Set well back from the coast, I'm sure the Germans thought them impregnable. Just like the Maginot line.
View from the front	Now the guns lie silent beyond fields where poppies bloom
Observation site closer to the coast used for aiming the battery	View to the East from the observation post. Mulberry Harbor at Arromanches is in the distance
Wendy fit very well inside the main targeting room	The view toward the Channel. Imagine how it felt to look out at dawn on June 6, 1944 and see nothing but thousands of Allied ships...
Spirit of American Youth sculpture at the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer. The names of 1,557 Americans who lost their lives in the conflict but could not be located and/or identified are inscribed on the walls of a semicircular garden at the east side of the memorial.	The inscription reads "I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish"
9,387 American military dead are honored here. It is such a humbling experience just to quietly walk these hallowed grounds	The view of Omaha Beach from the cemetery.
We walked on Omaha Beach, trying to imagine what it would have been like trying to reach cover from the Landing Ships. We couldn't.	The traditional stone memorial, inscription (in French and English) reads: "The Allied forces landing on this shore which they call Omaha Beach liberate Europe - June 6, 1944." In the lower right is the much less impressive "Les Braves" sculpture added for the 60th anniversary.