1. Cemetery at Colleville sur Mer; visit between 8:00-9:00 a.m. You may be lucky enough to be alone there. Bring Kleenex.
2. Omaha Beach; get a good travel guide to locate the gun emplacements, tobruks, weiderstand nests, etc. Try to visit during low tide. It’ll give you an idea of how far the soldiers had to go once they left the boats.
3. Pointe du Hoc; bomb craters are still there. Fascinating
4. Sainte-Mere-Eglise; don’t miss the museum.
5. American Cemetery at Lorraine; more visually impressive than any military cemetery I’ve ever seen.
6. Ardennes Forest. Ask the locals where the original “Easy Company” foxholes are located. The trees were harvested last September, so the foxholes were inaccessible, but you might get lucky. There’s a monument along the road across from the forest.
7. Bastogne; there are two MUST SEE museums: The Bastogne War Museum (opened about a year ago) and the 101st Airborne Museum. If you can visit only one, visit the 101st Museum. Go to the basement and experience a bombing raid on Bastogne.
You’ll want to go back to see what you missed, so plan another trip as soon as you get home.
Enjoy!
It was almost surreal as I went up to each Cross/Star of David and read the names I felt like I was having a conversation with the person, as if I knew them, although it happened well before I was even born. I tried to imagine what their life was like before the war, and how their last moments must have been like (keep in mind, most there were killed well after D-Day). You will be a changed person after going there.