canadian war sites

we are looking for ideas on how to best visit the Canadian beaches (such as Juno) .Our cruise is may 25 2017. we will be in Le havre ,france on june 5,2017? Any ideas out there?

Sure, just rent a car and drive yourself (a GPS helps). Otherwise, post on your CC Roll Call board and perhaps you will find some others interested. That being said, DW and I have visited all the D-Day beaches and Omaha with the still existing bunkers and nearby Pointe du Hok are the most interesting (although not used by the Canadian forces). We also strongly recommend visiting the Memorial de Caen (some call it the Peace Museum) located in Caen. This excellent war museum (for those interested in WWII) is often bypassed by cruise ship excursions and tours...which is a shame.

Hank

As mentioned on your other post, check overlordtours.com. Great vendor.

We used Eva Ruttger to see the Canadian Beaches when we were in Normandy.

We did it out of Cherbourg port. She was superb and knows her Canadian history and the sites very well. It's a moving trip for sure.

We had enough time to stop and see the Bayeux Tapestry on the way back to the ship (not sure if that would work out of Le Havre?)

Visitnormandybeaches.com

Hope this helps a bit.

Canuck here..ex military guy...Thus i wanted to see the Cdn sites! We used https://www.label-west.com/ and had a great private tour (just my wife and I) They provided us with a driver and a guide, and we had a great full day tour! We had thought of renting a car...also tried to form a tour in the Roll call..but most wanted to see the USA sites..thus why we decided to splurge and do it on our own. 1 thing to keep in mind when forming tours..the vans they use tend to be small....so it can be a tight fit! Start to reserve soon as the good companies tend to fill up very early!

There's no suitable public transport for any of the D-Day sights, & broadly you'll find that your choices are:

- an organised tour with a tour operator like Overlord Tours.

Expensive, but not too bad if you can join or create a group. And they're very very good. They will tailor a tour to your requirements - your main problem will be to find enough sharers with the same Canadian interests.

- or rent a car for the day.

To keep the cost down you'll need sharers, but you'll need fewer (total of four to six people) and you'll need to research your route etc,. But navigation, driving & parking are all very easy - divided highway most of the way, then un-crowded coastal lanes, and no city driving. There's plenty of signage & guides at the various sights.

In both cases, assuming you have a full day in port, you'll have time for Juno / Canadian Centre plus a few other places like Pegasus Bridge or the American cemetery, plus L'Abbaye D'Ardenne and Arromanches.

JB :)

I took John's advice and drove to Bayeaux, Juno museum/beach, cdn cemetery, and Pegasus bridge. The museum at Juno gives you all the cdn information that you need as DW had no prior d-day knowledge.

I would hire a car for the day. It is very easy driving on uncrowded roads. We have had a couple of holidays in the area with our own car.

I would recommend, time permitting, Omaha Beach museum, Juno Beach, Pegasus Bridge. Each museum has free guided tours. In Courselles, where Juno beach is situated there are some very nice restaurants.

Port du Bessin is a nice fishing port town and you may also have time to visit Point du Hoc and Arromanches to see the Mulberry Bridge which still remains.