Meet your guide at Bayeux train station or Place de Quebec, or your Bayeux hotel, and settle inside your comfortable, air-conditioned minivan with a group of eight travelers or fewer.
Then, drive to the Normandy coast as your guide shares background on the Allied D-Day landings of June 6, 1944. Few people know about the huge sacrifice made by Canadians as they held positions west of Caen and halted counter-attacks by the German 12th SS Panzer division.
While many have seen the movie Saving Private Ryan, most don’t know the numbers of Canadian soldiers buried in Normandy as a result of the two months of fighting that occurred here during the summer of 1944.
Stop at Juno Beach, where Canadian assault troops first stormed ashore in the face of fierce attacks from German strongholds. The Canadians suffered the second-highest number of casualties here, with the Americans losing the most at Omaha Beach.
Hear how the soldiers swept through heavy machine gun fire, and visit different sections of the sands from St. Aubin sur Mer to Graye sur Mer, where the 3rd infantry division landed.
Next, visit the Juno Beach Centre, a museum dedicated to the 45,000 Canadians who lost their lives in the war, including the 359 on D-Day, and 5,500 during the Battle for Normandy. Chart the story of these Canadians through the photos, archives, first-hand accounts, and artifacts, and see the excavated German bunkers on the beach.
Pay your respects at the Canadian War Cemetery and then track the route of the 9th Brigade advance on June 7 to the Abbey d'Ardenne and the capture of Caen and Carpiquet.
Lastly, stop to take in the monuments commemorating the bloody battles of Hill 67, just south of Caen. Your comprehensive tour then concludes with a drop-off at the original starting point.
