Overview

Visit to Normandy D-Day battle sites and Canadians landing beaches from Paris

Travel with your own group (2 participants) aboard a comfortable and air conditioning Minivan for a more personalized atmosphere

Step back in time on a history tour, and learn about the events of June 6, 1944

Pay your respects to the fallen Canadian soldiers at the Canadian War Cemetery in Beny-sur-Mer

See the famous “Canada House” on Juno Beach, said to be the first house liberated in Normandy.

Walk on the sands of Juno Beach in Normandy just like the Canadian troops did in June 1944.

Visit the Juno Beach Centre, the most comprehensive museum about the Canadian landings in Normandy.

Description

Stop At: Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery, 1/2 mile east of Reviers on highway D35, Reviers

The Bény-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery is a cemetery containing predominantly Canadian soldiers killed during the early stages of the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. It is located in and named after Bény-sur-Mer in the Calvados department, near Caen in lower Normandy. As is typical of war cemeteries in France, the grounds are beautifully landscaped and immaculately kept. Contained within the cemetery is a Cross of Sacrifice, a piece of architecture typical of memorials designed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The men who fell on the beaches and in the bitter bridgehead battles are buried in Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery which, despite its name, is near the village of Reviers. The cemetery contains 2,049 headstones enclosed by pines and maples. These mark the dead of the 3rd Division and the graves of 15 airmen.

Duration: 40 minutes

Stop At: La Maison des Canadiens, 34 Promenade des Francais, Bernieres-sur-Mer 14990

“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, France. “La Maison des Canadiens," or Canada 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.

This particular house was one of the few left intact, perhaps because it was the favoured home of an occupying German officer.

The left-hand side is owned by the family of Hervé Hoffer, whose grandfather owned the home during the war but was evicted by the Germans.

Duration: 30 minutes

Stop At: Juno Beach Centre, Voie des Francais Libres, Courseulles-sur-Mer 14470

The Juno Beach Centre’s permanent exhibit draws on photographs, documents, multimedia, maps, and artefacts to tell the story of the Canadians who volunteered for military service or mobilized at home to contribute to the war effort. It also presents the battles that took Canadian units from Sicily to Italy and from Normandy to the Netherlands.

The Centre pays homage to the 45,000 Canadians who lost their lives during the War, of which 5,500 were killed during the Battle of Normandy and 359 on D-Day.

The Centre is not only a museum about the war. It also portrays the personal accounts and real-life stories of the society that these soldiers bequeathed to their children and that now forms Canada.

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

Stop At: Croix de Lorraine, Voie des Francais Libres, Courseulles-sur-Mer 14470

Monument of The Lorraine Cross

Cross of more than 18 m high, located facing the sea, this monument commemorates the return of General de Gaulle to the French soil on June 14, 1944 after crossing the English Channel on board the French destroyer La combattante.

Duration: 20 minutes

Stop At: Graye-sur-Mer, Graye-sur-Mer

A British Churchill AVRE tank which "One Charlie" stands as a glorious memorial of the landing operations on 6 June 1944.This Churchill Mk IV AVRE tank was designed to get close to fortifications and blow them up with its mortar.

A bridge was built laid over the sunken Churchill tank to allow Allied troops across the flooded land. The tank was used as a bridge support. It remained buried for 32 years. In November 1976 a team of British Army soldiers and engineers extracted the Churchill AVRE tank from its wartime grave.

The two surviving members of the tank crew, Tank Driver Bill Dunn and Bill Hawkins, were present when it was lifted back onto the beach.

Duration: 15 minutes

Stop At: Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-Herbe, Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-Herbe

Canadian Memorial Abbaye d'Ardenne

In a garden next to the monastery Abbaye d'Ardenne a Canadian memorial is situated. The memorial commemorates 20 executed soldiers.

Text on the memorial:
"On the night of 7-8 June 1944, eighteen Canadian soldiers were murdered in this garden while being held here as prisoners of war. Two more prisoners died here, or nearby, on 17 June 1944. They are gone but not forgotten."

Duration: 20 minutes

Stop At: Caen Carpiquet, 14760 Bretteville -sur-odon, Caen

Operation Windsor (4–5 July 1944), was a Canadian attack, which was part of the Battle of Normandy during WW2.

The attack was undertaken by the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division to take Carpiquet and the adjacent airfield.

Carpiquet airfield was on a 1.2 mi expanse of level ground, which offered a "killing ground" for the defenders. The airfield had been fortified with minefields, field gun and machine gun emplacements, manned by I Battalion, SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 26, an anti-aircraft battery and fifteen tanks.

The Carpiquet airfield in Caen is still in service today and is open to national and international aerial traffic.

Duration: 10 minutes