Day 14 - the longest day

Feeling much stronger today. Perhaps yesterday's problem was not enough food the night before. Hills and wet weather slowed me down a bit today though. Went to be a tourist at the D-day ( they call it Jour-J) beaches and discovered it was June 6th. I didn't even know the day of the week, let alone the date.

These guys were all French, dressed up as Americans. There was lots of it about.

The beaches.

I stumbled upon a commemoration service; lots of soldiers etc. 6 flags and anthems. France was last flag and as it raised, the heavens opened again and it bucketed down on the crowd singing the Marseillaise. The idea of storming these beaches against machine gun fire etc, is mind-blowing. The memorials brought tears to my eyes. I hadn't realised/remembered that Caen was a ferry port until I got close, but the port is right next to the D-day beaches, and the idea of home, compared to today's weather (wet, wet, wet!) and tomorrow's forecast (thunderbolt and lightning - very very frightening ) led me to enquire about tickets tonight and I'm on my way home overnight, instead of battling Normandy's storms tomorrow towards Calais. Cumul 769 miles.