From the foggy morning at Le Mont St Michel to villages of Ducey & Sourdeval for their market day. Bought baguette, ham, cheeses & gorgeous tomatoes for a picnic lunch then off to Bayeux across the rural landscape on small roads. Bayeux is a delightful town which was not bombed during the D-Day invasion so is still ancient & original in the old centre. Luckily we arrived in time to watch Le Tour enter the Pyrenees & to see Michael Rogers win the stage with a wonderful ride. How exciting to actually be in France to see this day - one he must have dreamed of for so long - well done Mick! Had a full day tour of the American sector of the D-Day landings with the very enthusiastic Francois & a small group of 6 others who were all very good company (thank goodness). Started the day at the German war cemetery & ended at the American one with stops between at St Mer Eglise, Utah Beach, Le Pointe du Hoc & Omaha Beach. St Mer Eglise was the village where the paratrooper John Steele landed on the church steeple & hung there for several hours during the fighting for the town. There's a model of him hanging from the church & a great museum which contains a representation of how it might have felt in the plane & then to make a parachute jump over the village under fire & surrounded by other paratroopers. This was a very moving experience & gives just a tiny insight into how it was on that night of 6th June 1944. I walked to the sea at Utah & Omaha beaches to touch the water & try to imagine what it would have looked like 70 years ago, covered in obstacles, masses of soldiers, under fire ........ impossible to understand but so special to actually be there. Had a very moving experience at Pointe du Hoc which was the German gun emplacement covering both Utah & Omaha beaches. I saw an elderly man with a WWII veteran cap on so I asked if he had been there. He replied that he was at Omaha, so I thanked him, saying I'm Australian & he put his hand on my shoulder & I had to hold back the tears. We learned a great deal about Operation Overlord that we didn't know before - despite reading & watching "The Longest Day" & "Band of Brothers". The people of Normandy appear to still be enormously grateful to the Allies for liberating their country & there are flags of USA, Britain, Canada & France flying from many homes & in the streets of all the towns. Next day in Bayeux we went to see the famous tapestry which was surprisingly interesting with an audio guide of the whole story of William the Conqueror & beautiful embroidery considering it's over 900 years old. Two other museum visits were divided by a drive to Arromanches beach to see the remains of the British "Mulberry Harbour" just offshore & a film of archival footage from the landings. We ended the day with a walk around the British war cemetery in town where there are graves of many nations including Australian, Canadian, Polish ........ the memorial reads " We, once conquered by William, have now set free the conqueror's native land."