On our recent trip to France we did a quick day trip to Normandy. This was something my son and I had been looking forward to for a long time. We only had a day to fit it in, so I was not sure I was going to be able to make it work! But, even with a short amount of time you can make it happen. It does involve a little bit of preparation in advance, but the end result is certainly worth the effort!
Here is what we did:
- Took the 7:00 a.m. train from Paris to Caen. It was very easy to get the train at St. Lazare station. I had pre-booked our tickets ahead of time, so it was just a matter of finding the right train and getting on it!
- Decided to use a guide to see Normandy, so I did a lot of research to find a good guide. Some guides would not do tours if you were not staying in the area. Other guides cost too much and others were not available for the time I wanted. In the end I settled on http://www.pegasusnormandytours.com Their prices we excellent and they were available for the time I wanted.
- Gary from Pegasus Normandy Tours met us at the train station in Caen and showed us to mini van. He explained the day to us while the driver maneuvered out of the city. The van was new and very clean. We were provided with hot drinks and a wonderful cold lunch.
- The day was pretty full as we visited all of the British and Canadian beaches. We were able to see quite a bit as there was not much traffic on the roads at that time of year. We also visited the Pegasus Bridge Museum and the museum at Juno beach. We also got to visit an army surplus store and we picked up a couple of souvenirs of the day.
- At 6:30 p.m. we were dropped off at the train station to catch our 7:00 p.m. train back to Paris
It was a fantastic day and we saw more than expected. My top tips from this trip are:
- Find a good tour guide! I highly recommend the company that we used. They were very professional, answered all questions promptly and provided all that was promised.
- Book your train travel trips ahead of time. The tickets are much cheaper if you can book them on the French National site and print them off yourself. A little tricky to figure out how to do this, but it is a real time saver when you get to the train station.
