Four of us will be visiting Paris in October and would like to take a day-trip tour of the Normandy D-Day beach sites. The options seem confusing. Can anyone suggest the most cost effective/comfortable/informative way to do this? We would love to hear stories of great experiences on one of these tours.
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From Paris you can : take a tour type Paris Vision or Cityrama as one-day tour, it is about 150 euros per person with lunch if i remember well, with a tour guide who is in general quite informative.
The second option is to take the train to Caen for example, and then take a minibus trip from there (the tourist office should have some information about companies).
Third option : take the train to Normandy and rent a car.
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Hello John,
If you search this site for Normandy or D Day beaches, I think you will get many opinions about how to do it.
For 4 of you, it might be cost effective IMO to rent a car for a day, maybe from the western edge of Paris (la defense) and drive out. It%26#39;s about 2 hours on a direct super highway. When you get to the Normandy beaches, there are many historical musuems where you will get great information on what went on. You can drive along the shore and to the cemeteries. (Great eating over there too.)
By all means don%26#39;t miss it. It is awesome to see it.
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Raphy %26amp; Bea, Thanks for the info. The car rental is something we had not considered but may be more time effective. I%26#39;ll check out the rental possibilities.
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By all means, the rental car is the way to go. You will have the freedom to go where you want and stay as long as you like. I suggest you invest in a couple of guide books and plan a route ahead of time. The guide books will tell you where the smaller monuments are located. If you are interested in the American Beaches, the best place to start is Bayeaux. It%26#39;s a short drive to the beach from there. The highways are very good and fast. All of the important sites have parking. The other good thing about renting a car is that you can explore the many small private museums along the beach road.
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We booked a tour in May 2005 via www.linkparis.com (the D-Day tour). We found it to be very informative and our guide (Karine) was great. She is a native of Caen and added many insights as a %26quot;local%26quot;. This tour was the best option for us as 1) we didn%26#39;t feel comfortable renting a car and 2) we like small tours (they limit the group to 8). We took the train to Caen and were picked up at the station. Spent the morning at the Caen Memorial Museum (amazing place), lunch was provided at the museum, then the afternoon included numerous sites: The American Cemetary, Omaha Beach, and Ponte du Hoc. We also stopped at the German cemetary (La Cambe, I think). We%26#39;re booking again with this tour for May.
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