Place de Québec

Place de Québec is situated just around the corner from The Bayeux Tourist Information Office. We pick up here daily for a full-day D-Day Private Tour. There are toilet facilities here, as well as a cafe nearby – ‘La Garde Manger’ – perfect for passengers who wish a quick coffee prior to departure. Passengers can specify their tour start time and designated pick-up /drop-off location on our booking system. (An ‘Early-Bird’ 08:45 option is also available at checkout). Private Tour clients also benefit from a free Bayeux Hotel pick-up / drop-off option.

NB: If your preferred day/date isn’t available at checkout, just drop us a line…

(*Option) L’Abbaye D’Ardenne 

On D-Day + 1, German soldiers – members of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend – captured Canadian soldiers and led them to this Abbey. Eighteen of them were executed, in violation of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. Other summary executions were also carried out during this month of fighting and during the course of the Normandy Campaign an estimated 156 Canadian prisoners of war are believed to have been executed by the Hitler Youth. There is a poignant war memorial commemorating this tragic event in the Ardenne Abbey. Here we will also learn how the abbey was taken back from the Germans on 8th July 1944 by the Canadian soldiers of the Regina Rifle Regiment, which enabled the liberation of the left bank of Caen the following day….

(*Option) Bény-sur-Mer : Canadian War Cemetery

Bény-sur-Mer was created as a permanent resting place for Canadian soldiers who had been temporarily interred in smaller plots close to where they fell. As is usual for war cemeteries or monuments, France granted Canada a perpetual concession to the land occupied by the cemetery. The graves contain soldiers from the 3rd Canadian Division and 15 airmen killed during the Battle of Normandy. The cemetery also includes three British graves and one French grave, for a total of 2048 markers. Bény-sur-Mer also contains the remains of nine sets of brothers. We will make a short stop at the cemetery to pay our respects…

1. Canada House : Bernières-sur-Mer

“Within sight of this house over 100 men of the Queen’s Own Rifles were killed or wounded, in the first few minutes of the landings”. That stark inscription welcomes visitors at the entrance of a large, timber-framed house overlooking Juno Beach In the village of Bernières-sur-Mer. ‘La Maison des Canadiens,’ or Canadian House, is one of the most iconic buildings in Canadian military history. It was one of the first houses liberated by Canadian soldiers on D-Day, 6 June 1944, and has since become a familiar historic landmark, standing in the backdrop of the many black-and-white photographs showing troops landing on the sands of this village in Normandy….At Canada House we will take a closer look at the fierce battle which resulted in heavy losses for the Canadians landing on Juno Beach on D-Day…

2. Courseulles

On June 6th, 1944, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and the 2nd Armoured Brigade were tasked with establishing a bridgehead on the beach codenamed “Juno”. This was an eight-kilometre long stretch of beach bordering Saint-Aubin, Bernières, Courseulles-sur-Mer and Graye-sur-Mer. Assault troops were then to move towards the Carpiquet airfield, 18 kilometres inland. The 3rd Infantry Division, under Major-General R.F.L. Keller, was under command of the Second British Army. It was flanked on the left by the 3rd British Infantry Division that was to land on Sword beach (Lion-sur-Mer, Langrune-sur-Mer). To the right, the 50th British Division had as its target “Gold Beach” (La Rivière, Le Hamel, and Arromanches)…at Courseulles we’ll take a look at some of the challenges facing The 3rd Canadian ID…

3. Charlie-1 Tank & Cosys Bunker WN #31

This Churchill Mk IV AVRE tank was designed to get close to fortifications and blow them up with its mortar. This obstacle-clearing tank called ‘Avenger’, lay hidden under the sand-dunes of Juno beach for 3 decades and was not rediscovered beneath the sand dunes until 1976! Just along the path we will also visit Cosys Bunker, named after Lieutenant W.F. “Cosy” Aitken, who commanded No. 10 Platoon, of B Company, Royal Winnipeg Rifles. On D-Day, his men stormed the bunker and suffered 78% casualties in doing so...

(*Option) Juno Beach Visitor Centre

Thanks to a project conceived in the 1990s by a group of Canadian veterans – and spearheaded by veteran Garth Webb and his companion Lise Cooper – the Juno Beach Centre was inaugurated on 6 June 2003 with over one thousand Canadian veterans attending. The museum’s exhibitions, features & photos not only relate the events of D-Day itself, but the story too of life in Canada before the outbreak of the war. It also tells the story of Canada’s civilian and military contribution to the war effort, and of contemporary Canadian society in the decades since World War II. The unique building – designed by Canadian architect Brian K. Chamberlain – is made up of five main points in a single-storey structure, resembling a stylized maple leaf. Just adjacent to the visitor centre there is a ceremonial area, which features a statue entitled Remembrance & Renewal. The museum also houses a temporary exhibition space, which changes approximately once per year and which highlights historic themes & stories relating to Canada past and present. A visit here is considered by many a must for everyone, and especially for all Canadian visitors to Normandy…

(*Option) Ryes Commonwealth Cemetery

This small, virtually forgotten cemetery – off the beaten track and surrounded by fields – is situated between Bayeux and Arromanches and is rarely visited by major tour companies or tourists. Beautifully maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, it contains 653 Commonwealth war graves, including one Polish and 335 German. The first interments in the cemetery were made two days after the initial D-Day landings. Some of the soldiers buried here are from the 50th British Northumbrian Infantry Division that landed on Gold Beach. The cemetery also contains a large number of Royal Navy and merchant navy sailors. Two brothers, Private Joseph Casson (Durham Light Infantry) and Marine Robert Casson (45 Commando) are buried beside each other in the graveyard.

4. Robert Kiln Place – Ver-sur-Mer

Gold Beach, was the code name for one of the five areas of the Allied D-Day Invasion of German-occupied France during the Normandy D-Day landings. Gold, the central of the five areas, was located between Port-en-Bessin on the west and La Rivière on the East. High cliffs at the western end of the zone meant that the landings had to take place on the flat eastern section between Le Hamel and La Rivière (in the sectors code-named Jig and King). Taking Gold was to be the responsibility of the British Army, with sea transport, mine sweeping, and a naval bombardment force provided by the Royal Navy, as well as elements from the Dutch, Polish and other Allied Navies. Here, we will look briefly at the mission-critical roles played by the many regiments of The Royal Artillery on D-Day, before visiting a very special bus shelter not far from this spot…

5. Gold Beach – Asnelles WN#37 German Strongpoint

Asnelles was heavily bombed by the Allied air forces and the navy at dawn on D-Day. The 1st Hampshire and the Dorsetshire Regiments, supported by the Sherwood Rangers tanks of the 8th Armored Brigade experienced heavy fighting here at the two German Strongpoints WN#36 & WN#37. At this stop we will visit Gold Beach, and if the tide is out we will be able to visit the remains of ‘Port Winston’ – Mulberry Harbour B. Whilst visiting the beach here we will take a brief look at the German strongpoints which inflicted heavy casualties as the Allied soldiers landed here at 07:25 on D-Day…

6. Mulberry Harbour B: “Port Winston” (Asnelles)

It was on the beach of Arromanches that, during the Invasion of Normandy immediately after D-Day, the Allies established an artificial temporary harbour to allow the unloading of heavy equipment without waiting for the conquest of deep water ports such as Le Havre or Cherbourg. As the centre of the Gold Beach landing zone – Arromanches – was spared the brunt of the fighting on D-Day, so the installation and operation of the port was able to proceed as quickly as possible, without damaging the beach and destroying surrounding lines of communication.

(*Option) Ver-sur-Mer : The British Memorial

D-Day and the Battle of Normandy in 1944 opened the way to the liberation of Europe and the end of World War II. British armed forces played a central role in these momentous events, and more than 22,000 made the ultimate sacrifice for Freedom. Until now, there has been no single memorial dedicated to their remembrance (!). The Normandy Memorial Trust was created in 2016 to realise the dream of Normandy Veterans to have a British Normandy Memorial and, following nearly six years of hard work, was opened on Sunday 6 June 2021.

7. Bill Pendell Memorial – Arromanches

“I have never been a real soldier! – Nobody ever told me what to do. I’m just a normal bloke. I’m a bricklayer”.

Bill Pendell landed as a courier, classified at the Royal Signals of the 11th Armored Division, during D-Day June 6, 1944 at Gold Beach. Later he would perform exploration operations. Bill initially went to the infantry in 1941.

“I was always on my own”, Bill said seventy years later. “I only had a stengun as a weapon. But I could hardly ever use that, otherwise, I would betray my position. From Nijmegen we were transported to Eindhoven by truck. Here I had my first bath since the landing in Normandy”.

When the German troops deployed their Ardennes offensive on December 16, the 11th Armored Division had to protect bridges in the area to bring the Germans to a standstill. Bill’s division drove to northern Germany, where the division liberated the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945. Bill chose never to discuss what he saw there. Bill served in Germany until 1946.

The ‘D-Day 75 Garden’, designed by John Everiss, was officially opened at its new permanent site at Arromanches in a ceremony involving 50 Normandy veterans (ONTour was present for the inauguration – see header photo on bio page).

With the help of the Royal Engineers, the garden was dismantled from The Chelsea Gardens and moved from Britain and rebuilt in seven days. It now overlooks Mulberry Harbour and Gold Beach, which Mr Pendell stormed aged 22 with thousands of other men in 1944…

Lunchbreak: 1 hour at Arromanches

During the break for lunch, clients can opt for lunch-on-the go with either a visit to the newly opened (April 1st, 2023) Mulberry Harbour Museum OR first visit the 360 cinema – adjacent to the Bill Pendell monument – before walking down the bluff into Arromanches to grab a sandwich.

(*Option) Longues-sur-Mer German Battery

The anti-naval guns of The German Battery at Longues-sur-Mer were a key element of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. Built on a clifftop overlooking the English Channel and situated right in the heart of the Allied assault sector between Omaha and Gold Beaches, they included a range-finding post and four casemates, each housing a 150-mm gun. Despite numerous Allied air raids in the night of 5th June 1944, the battery was still operational on the morning of 6th June. On our visit to this UNESCO World Heritage site, you will be able to go inside the casemates themselves, and we will discover why it took the Allies until June 7th to force its surrender…

8. Vierville-sur-Mer – Omaha Beach {‘Saving Private Ryan’}

On D-Day at 06:30, the U.S. Army’s 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division, along with units of the 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalions,  landed on Omaha Beach, below Vierville-sur-Mer. The 29th Division & The Rangers suffered extremely heavy losses in the very first few minutes. On this stop you’ll find out how the courageous soldiers persevered on ‘Bloody Omaha’, and how in the face of all odds and at the prospect of certain death, they finally cut through the formidable German defenses.

9. Saint Laurent-sur-Mer – Omaha Beach

Omaha Beach, was the code name for one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944. Taking Omaha was to be the responsibility of United States Army troops of the First Division nicknamed ‘The Big Red One’. However faced with the 12,020 experienced combat troops of the German 352nd Infantry Division, the battle-hardened 1st Infantry Division had its work cut out. During this memorable visit you’ll find out why nothing here went according to plan on D-Day. Thus we shall discover how ‘Bloody Omaha’ earned its name…

10. Normandy Colleville American Cemetery

On June 8, 1944, the U.S. First Army established the temporary cemetery, the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II. After the war, the present-day cemetery was established a short distance to the east of the original site. Come and honour the graves of our fallen Heroes, discover the gold-embossed gravestones of the three Medal of Honour recipients – listen to some stories from their lives – and peruse the wall of the missing upon which are engraved the names of 1557 servicemen never recovered…

NB: Visitor Centre extended visit option

(*Option) Omaha Beach + WN 62 (*Time-permitting).

Omaha Beach, was the code name for one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944. Taking Omaha was to be the responsibility of United States Army troops of the First Division nicknamed ‘The Big Red One’. However faced with the 12,020 experienced combat troops of the German 352nd Infantry Division, the battle-hardened 1st Infantry Division had its work cut out. During this memorable visit you’ll find out why nothing here went according to plan on D-Day. Thus we shall discover how ‘Bloody Omaha’ earned its name…

We arrive back at client’s Bayeux hotel at 18:00. Caen client drop-offs will be one hour later. Clients returning to Paris can either make the scheduled 18:30 train (*appx), or if they have chosen an extended itinerary, they will require a ‘modifiable’ ticket for a *20:00 (*appx) Bayeux departure. Both a standard 8-hr and an extended 9.5 hr itinerary are possible depending on client choices (Please see our ‘Helpful Info’ menu > ‘Booking Your Paris Train‘).

During our relaxing drive back to the station you will have 20 minutes to reflect on the day’s touring and have a casual chat with your Guide. We always appreciate feedback about your D-Day experience and welcome any last-minute questions. Please do not hesitate to let your driver know if we can be of any further assistance. Thank you for choosing NormandyONtour.