Friday night at 2000 we left my house in convoy down to the ferry at Portsmouth. At 0800 Saturday morning, the ferry ramp went down and we rode out into an overcast France. We fueled up and settled in to the journey to our first stop, Pegasus Memorial at the bridge on the Caen Canal.
We then continued on to Arromanches-Les-Bains where we stayed at Karen and Adrian's Normandy Beach B&B. We dumped the bikes and gear and strolled into town for a look around the Musee du Debarquement d'Arromanches followed by a showing at the Arromanches 360 cinema. Dinner at the B&B was fresh Fruit de mer, Saving Private Ryan on the projecter and (for some of our number) vast quantities of red wine.
Everyone managed to make it more or less on time for an 0830 breakfast on Sunday. On the bikes again to Bayeux (No, by thur) for fuel followed by the Musee Memorial de la Bataille de Normandie then the Commonwealth cemetery. Next stop was Omaha beach where a carb rubber was duly changed.
typical MTRC rideout scene:
Once sorted we grabbed lunch then set off for Battery de Maisy (freshly excavated after 60 years) then La Point du Hoc and finally Batterie de Longues-sur-Mer.
Dinner that night was a huge spag-bol followed by lollies dunked in vodka and slightly less red wine than the previous night.
Monday dawned with beautiful sunshine and the American Airborne Museum at Sainte-Mere-Eglise was our destination. Next up was the Musee du Debarquement Utah Beach were a lady introduced her husband, the former production manager at Armstrong Motorcycles - a chance to meet someone intimately involved in the creation of our bikes. Back to Arromanches to pick up the camping gear and take it to the town campsite (my f*** up...) and pitch. A slightly less classy dinner of pizza a emporter and cans of Kronenberg eaten on the street was followed by a stroll along the beach.
We got a tolerable night's sleep amongst the hordes of dutch driving around in Willys Jeeps wearing full US uniform (you thought we were Walty?) despite some very odd English people, and a **** of a yappy dog.
Tuesday dawned grey for the ride back and got worse from there. We came out of the Musee du Mur de l'Atlantique to hammering rain which didn't let off while we visited the Musee de la Batterie de Merville, relieved us of any visibilty coming into Le Havre and ultimately tailed off as we queued to check in at the port. The fast boat was indeed very fast and we were soon back into a dry(ish) England ready for the ride home. We reached mine at 2200, fitted a new battery to Unk's bike and had a cup of tea. I must admit, I didn't envy the guys settling in to a 3/4hour journey north.
I enjoyed the trip enormously, especially the company. If my wife would let me, I'd lead another one and as far as the trip itself was concerned I wouldn't do very much differently (except maybe not cock the dates up)
Big thanks to the chaps for making it so easy.
http://www.memorial-pegasus.org/mmp/mus ... hp?lang=uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.musee-arromanches.fr/accueil ... hp?lang=uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.arromanches360.com/en/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.normandybeach.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.normandiememoire.info/lieux_ ... parcours=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.cwgc.org/search/cemetery_det ... 300&mode=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Beach" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.maisybattery.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointe_du_Hoc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.normandiememoire.com/NM60Ita ... _06_gb.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.musee-airborne.com/eng/home.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.utah-beach.com/uk/landing-mu ... efault.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.arromanches.com/uk/camping_accueil.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.musee-grand-bunker.com/englishversion.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.batterie-merville.com/index_uk.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
