Battle of Normandy Tours

 

A Day's Touring...


There is no such thing as an average day's

touring...


The tours generally start at 9am and finish at 6pm at your hotel (if your hotel is within ten miles (15km) of Bayeux) or at the most convenient train stations to suit your schedule. Normally, one museum is visited during the tour and the entrance fee generally costs from 4 to 6 euros per person. Lunch is as you like, bring or buy sandwiches, light cooked lunch in a cafe or 4 course lavish 5 star restaurant, you just need to say on the day. The start and end times for the tour are something that can be changed to suit if desired.

 

Picture
'No, no, we're not lost. We're in Normandy...'
 
Question: What can I see in my day on tour in Normandy?

Reply: Where do you want to go and what do you want to look at?


A few things to bear in mind when you book your tour:

Bayeux is the place to base yourself if you are here to take a D-Day Tour or a tour to some of the sites of the Later Battles in Normandy

Normandy is big. It looks really small on a map, but it's really big. To drive across Normandy from east to west takes over three hours. Although there was fighting all over Lower Normandy, the D-Day landings took place right out in the west of Lower Normandy, so if you already have accommodations booked you need to find out how far away your hotel is from Bayeux. Most tours start from here in Bayeux as it is the most central town to the entire D-Day landing area and is situated only 6 miles (10km) south of the coast. Bayeux also has a main-line railway station with regular trains to Paris, is on the main Paris-Cherbourg highway/motorway and has a good selection of hotels and amenities.

Bear in mind that it can take a long time to get to where you want to go.

The D-Day Landings took place along about 62 miles (100km) of coastline. This coastline was divided into five landing sectors called (from West to East) Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword and these sectors are between 5 and 18 miles (8 to 30km) apart. Normandy is a very quiet, sleepy, rural area of France with narrow roads and a very indirect road network to go with that. It takes a long time to drive between the various different landings sectors. Non-stop, it takes an hour and a half to drive from Sword (in the east) to Utah (in the west) even when travelling on the main road. The areas of Normandy covered here in the Battle of Normandy section of the website (St Lô, the Falaise Pocket, etc) can be up to an hour and a half drive away from the landing zones themselves.

Click Here for Local Travel Information


For D-Day Tours...

On average, allow 4/5 hours (a half-day touring) to get an overview of one sector/battle, or allow 8/9 hours (a full-day touring) to get an in-depth look.

To visit any one battle sector of the five D-Day Landing Sectors listed (Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword sectors) on the "D-Day Tours" page generally speaking takes most people about 4 to 5 hours (a half-day tour) to get an overview and general understanding as well as visiting the most important battlesites in that sector. 

Different Landing Sectors can be combined to make a full day tour such as;
If you are interested in the American Landing Sectors you could see the Utah and Omaha sectors with a
one-day tour for an overview of those two Landing Sectors.

The same came be done if you are interested in the British Landing Sectors, combining the Gold and Sword Beach sectors for a one day tour of the British D-Day Landing Sites.

For people interested in the Canadian Battle Sectors, a tour of the Juno Beach Landing sector and the Closure of the Falaise pocket (from the "Later Battles in Normandy" page) can also be combined into a full-day tour.

All of these tours can also be done over two or more days to get a much more detailed look at the sectors and battles that interest you. 


For D-Day Tours from Cruise Ships in
Cherbourg or Le Havre

A D-Day Tour from a Cruise ships in Cherbourg or Le Havre is no longer available.


For Tours to the sites of the
Later Battles in Normandy...

On average, allow 4/5 hours (a half-day touring) to get an overview of one battle, or allow 8/9 hours (a full-day touring) to get an in-depth look.

To look at the sites listed on the "Later Battles in Normandy" page would need about a half-day's touring to get an overview and understanding each site. 

Two of these tours, like the D-Day Tours, can be combined in a full-day tour, but the three tours "The Battle of the Hedgerows and the Capture of St Lô", "Op. Cobra: Patton's Break-out from Normandy" and "Op. Lüttich: the German Counter-attack at Mortain" can be combined in a single one-day tour. This is only possible as all three tours are geographically consecutive and so follow each other on the same road. This allows a lot of driving time to be saved and so it is not possible to combine any other three battles to fit into one single day's touring.

Prices

'That's a dollar, right...?'
'That's a dollar, right...?'

How you can Pay

All tours are payable on the day in cash, or pre-pay up to ten days before the tour using the PayPal Link opposite. The prices quoted in your booking email are the total price to pay for the day and include everything on the day except museum entrance fees and lunch/coffee.

Payment using PayPal

If you have booked you tour and wish to pre-pay or put down a deposit or part-payment, please click on the link below.

Payments made below can be made with an existing PayPal account or by Credit Card even if you do not have a PayPal account



After you have made a payment please copy the PayPal transaction number and email it to us (above) along with the name the tour was booked under. A receipt of payment will then be emailed back to you after confirmation that the payment has been recieved.

All of the tours given are private tours, so all prices are the price for the whole tour, not per person.
The cost per person is the total cost of the tour (below) divided by however many people you have in your group.


D-Day and Battle of Normandy Tour Prices with a pick-up within 10 miles of Bayeux
For any D-Day or Battle of Normandy tour for up to six passengers including a van and private guide will cost 450 Euros for a full-day tour (9 hour), or 300 Euros for a half-day tour (5 hour).

For the same tour again but using the clients vehicle instead of me supplying the car the cost is 300 Euros for a full-day tour (9 hour) or 200 Euros for a half-day tour (5 hour).

D-Day and Battle of Normandy Tour Prices from Cruise ship in Le Havre

D-Day Tours from Cruise ships are no longer available.

D-Day and Battle of Normandy Tour Prices from Cruise ship in Cherbourg

D-Day Tours from Cruise ships are no longer available.

Battle Tours outside of Normandy

For the cost of Tours outside of Normandy please Click Here
 

Before you come, please tell me any areas of specific interest you may have.

If you have specific interests in any one area or profession (medical, engineering, aviation, maritime, armour, artillery, airborne, infantry, communications, etc) of the military, are interested in a specific unit (division, regiment, battalion, etc), or have a family relative fought in the War (see if you can find out what unit he was with, please), don't hesitate to tell me! I will do my best to tailor the tour to include the things that you are interested in or may do or have done in a similar job in civilian or military life.

The Weather in Normandy...

The tour can involve lots of action/walking about/exploring bunkers if you're into that and depending on how energetic you feel, but a little warning about the weather in Normandy- no matter winter or summer the weather here in Normandy is unpredictable. It could be really nice, sunny, warm, shorts and tee-shirts weather when you're here. It could equally be nastly, cold, windy, raining when you're here. (Eisenhower's comment in the middle of a rainstorm on June 2nd 1944- "Don't you guys get a summer over here?") The best advice is to pack for the worst and hope for the best. But bear in mind umbrellas are no use in the wind along the coast and battlefields tend to be muddy and wet, especially if it has rained during the previous week.

Finally

If you get a chance before you come over then watch the film "The Longest Day", if you can. Made back in 1962, it's an old Black and White film shot in Normandy about D-Day and is nice and squeaky clean so good for kids. The film is entirely factually based and you can still see today where most of these actions took place. You can also see the section of Omaha Beach where the landing scene in "Saving Private Ryan" actually happened. Finally, the HBO Series "Band of Brothers" episodes 2 and 3 are very good and you can be taken down the roads and paths used by this group of American Paratroopers on D-Day and subsequently. All of the above programs and films are good for putting a 1944 view on what you can see here in Normandy today.


I hope to see you soon in Normandy!

Edward Robinson