20 | June | 2026 | The Cannon Family's travel blog

Or as we should say in French: Allons sur les plages! Today’s plan (yes, there was one!) was to head back east a bit to Deuxville to see what the “posh” beach in the area looks like – and visit the street market that was scheduled to be there until just after lunch. Then we would wend our way back west making stops at the 3 eastern landing beaches – Sword, Juno, and Gold. We made cooked breakfast in our tiny cupboard of a kitchen before setting out for our adventures.

Because we wanted this to be a chill driving tour, we are very happy taking all the back roads and seeing the country. Well we are mostly happy – except when we hit the *really* back roads with no lane markers, no passing places, and insane speed limits for the conditions. There are lots of comparable B roads in Scotland (except they have passing places!) but when we drive down those roads, I’m comfortably ensconced on the verge side of the car. The trusty and talented driver (that’s Frank BTW) is the one closest to the oncoming traffic and can make the appropriate decisions when cars get too close. Here, it is me facing small French automobiles coming towards me taking up what seems to be more than their fare share of the road! We’ve only had one instance where we had to overcompensate for a road hog but that doesn’t make some of these travels any easier. Good thing my hair is already grey!

We arrived unscathed and headed to the market – one of our favourite activities. In addition to the requisite food stalls, there were a variety of clothing, jewellery, and household items that we thoroughly enjoyed perusing. I came away with a nice green and white shirt for €10. Yay!

Then to lunch! We found a lovely cafe with a variety of salad options – none of which involved fried Indian food items! I thoroughly enjoyed the Niçoise – including the anchovies! – and Frank opted for the Croque Monsieur (because who doesn’t like a pound of cheese melted on a ham sandwich!) Add the local cider and dessert (cheesecake and divine panna cotta) and it was a most sumptuous repast.

Then to the beach! Interestingly, it appears that this weekend is the Deuxville Triathlon- with a sprint, Olympic, and Iron Man distance on offer. So the beachfront had been transformed into different parts of the race which made it more difficult to appreciate the “glamour and luxury” that Google Gemini would have you believe is the norm. The beach itself is okay – broad pale sands strewn with LOTS sharp shells – but not the nicest we’ve seen this week.

Then it was off to the eastern D-Day beaches – lesser celebrated than Omaha and very different in both nature and commemoration. Sword is the furthest east and except for the obligatory museum and the statue of Piper Billie Mullins, you wouldn’t really know it was a special place. Families were picnicking and people were walking their dogs. Everything seemed very normal. The sand here was also coarse and full of sharp things so definitely not a favourite.

Next up: Juno beach – the Canadian one according to all the signs. Here was another museum along with bunkers, tanks, and other reminders of what came before. The beach itself was actually kind of gross with harsh sand and gobs of seaweed and other floaties. Ugh.

Finally to Gold beach which seemed to have almost nothing to mark it as being the next beach over from Omaha. Until we found the British Memorial nearby. A similar commemoration to the Normandy American cemetery, it is a memorial – but not resting place- for every British solo who died during the Battle of Normandy. Outside the columned structure are metal silhouettes representing each of the soldiers killed on D-Day. In the fading summer sunlight, it was incredibly moving. (Lest you think we don’t investigate, the beach was far less jaggy with much nicer sand but not necessarily better atmosphere.)

A stop at a large Carrefore on the road home provided all we needed for the evening meal. Our go-to AirBnb dinner of pasta and sauce- this time with loads of fresh mushrooms- and a lovely Cotes du Rhône (yup, €4). C’est magnifique!

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