Lehavre Port of call ~ Normandy tour

[Flightchik]

Looking for recommendations for a great tour of Normandy WWII sites for our day in LeHavre, France

 

 

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[Essiesmom]

Suggest you check out the Ports of Call boards here for northern Europe. EM

[BeagleOne]

Are any tours offered through the ship? I would be tempted to take one of those so that if you are late getting back, the ship will wait. The invasion beach area is about 60 miles long and LeHavre itself is about 50 miles east of the easternmost beach, so there is a lot of driving involved. And once you are off the main highways, the roads are narrow and winding, so it takes awhile to get anywhere.

[paul929207]

Other or additional options include Caen and Bayeux. Bayeux is the home of the Tapestry of the same name. It was done at the request of an uncle of William the Conqueror to record the story of his conquest of England. I forget the exact numbers, but it is about 20 inches high and 200 feet long. It has about 50 tableaus telling the story. It is a great place to visit, especially if you have seen the WWII beaches

[CruiserBruce]

The board to look on is the France board, here:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=593

 

where you will see many recommendations for Overlord.com, a great and popular tour company.

[John Bull]

No personal experience of tours, but http://www.overlordtour.com/ gets great reviews on Cruise Critic. Quite expensive, & you need to put together - or join - a group because Overland only offer vans from Le Havre, not seats.

Since you're posting as a "first-time-cruiser", setting up a tour & seeking sharers might be a bit daunting, and there are pitfalls. But I see you've found your RollCall. Have you perused all 30-odd pages to see if anyone has set up a tour & is looking for sharers?

 

There are other forums worth looking at on Cruise Critic.................

I don't usually disagree with Essiesmom, but the northern Europe board concentrates on the Baltic & Norway.

 

I'd be more inclined to check out the western Europe board http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=233

Here's a selection of threads on that forum which are worth looking through

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/search.php?searchid=87981538

(found them by typing "Normandy beaches" into the "forum search" box on that forum. Try that with your other ports-of-call, saves a lot of trawling through irrelevant threads.

 

And check out Mediterranean ports, France

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=-1&f=593

(yes, I do know my geography, but plenty of others don't & you'll find northern France threads on there too ;))

 

There's no suitable public transport for touring the landing beaches & sights, so you're limited to:

ship's tour

or

shared tour (eg Overlord)

or

car+driver. No guide, but drivers know their way around & although you'll miss out on a lot of detail there's plenty of information/signage/staff etc at the places of interest. Research which sights you want to visit. Get together four people to share & the cost needn't be horrendous.

or

Rental car. That's very economical if four of you share. The driving is pretty easy - mainly fast divided highway & coastal lanes, no city driving, parking easy virtually everywhere. Again needs research of the sights, plus research of the route. Check what time the car has to be returned by - cruise ships usually sail mid-evening from Le Havre, but that's of no value if you have to return the car by, say, 5.30pm.

 

It's hard graft figuring your way around Cruise Critic, it's a big website & quite complicated for technologically-challenged folk like me. :o

But well worth the effort, there's stax of useful info.

 

JB :)

[WatchHill]

We did your tour of Normandy with Overlord and would do it again if the opportunity presented.

 

Connecting with others who were on our British Isles cruise with Princess was easy; one member put down the basic CC hold, and then posted asking others to sign on. With a few days, we had a full van. We found each other once on the sip and confirmed where to meet so we could get off as a small group once we reached France at the end of the cruise. None of us knew each other; we were a few couples from the US, one GB, another Australia. Our driver, Sophie, met us in the parking lot near where we got off the ship, and gave us a quick overview of the day, verified we wanted to see the American sector and off we went. She was non-stop with details, had personal family history to share and went out of her way to provide us with one of the best tours of the entire cruise.

 

At the end of the tour, each couple took care of the cost in Euro's/cash.

 

Darcy

[mamkmm2]

Overlord Tour #9B. 95 euros.