Normandy, France: My Experience Staying in a Castle in one of the World’s Most Famously Historical Cities
In my 10+ years visiting and living in France, I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t actually traveled much within the country. I have good reason for that, being that my passion lies in seeing as much of the world as possible; and although I’d love to see a lot of cities within specific countries, it’s just not in line with my goals. It is for this exact reason that I’ve only seen about 10% of the U.S.
In France, I’ve only ever traveled to Nantes, Aix-en-Provence, Marseille, and of course– Paris. Most of those trips happened so long ago I don’t even have blog posts on them (something I am trying to rectify. I will update this post with links when I eventually get around to blogging about my time in those cities.)
All of this is to say that when a good friend of mine invited me on a weekend trip to Normandy, I packed my bags right away.
This weekend was one of the most intense French-immersion weekends yet. Living in Paris, you can really get by without speaking much French. Of course I still do, because I enjoy it, but it’s not as necessary as everyone seems to think.
We stayed in a beautiful old castle in Normandy which was owned by a friend of the the friend who invited me. There were about 20 of us, and I was the only non-French person there. This was admittedly difficult; not because of a language barrier, but because 72 hours of intense cultural differences can be straining on even the best of us.
Regardless, the host and her friends were welcoming and kind. We had huge feasts for lunch and dinner every day. Everyone pitched in to make it work. You could pick any room you wanted in the house as there were an obscene amount of them, and everything looked as though we had stepped back into the late 1800s. Almost eerily so.
There was endless amounts of beer and rosé being passed around starting at noon and continuing until we all stumbled up to our beds. We would lay out in the sun all day and at night we lit up the fireplace, boozed up from a day of drinking in the sun.
My friend and I only left for one full day to explore the city and see all of the remnants of World War II and of course, check out some of the famous museums. I am so happy we did this. There was so much I didn’t know about WWII.
My WWII recommendations:
La Point du Hoc, (pictured above) was incredible. It’s a point at Omaha beach, one of the many D-Day beaches in Normandy. Of all the beaches in Normandy I recommend Omaha the most. You don’t get to see actual remnants of WWII at every beach but at Omaha beach, you will literally dodge huge pits where bombs were dropped, and see the bunkers where the German soldiers were hiding out. It’s incredibly eerie.
Caen Memorial Museum: There is so much information and WWII memorabilia in here. Definitely do not skip, but also carve out a decent chunk of your day if you don’t want to rush. There is a ton of information.
We also went to the American cemetery. I’m not the most patriotic American but it was still cool to see and honor the troops who died in Europe during WWII.
