Check it out. Nothing I can quote will do this justice.

clicky.

Wow, that was actually pretty cool. I had always feared that much of the architecture of that place and time were lost. It was pretty reassuring to see that they didn't just bulldoze everything over, start over, and loose the culture.

You can do a great tour of the major WW2 areas of Normandy in the summer (the whole area is pretty nasty weather-wise in the fall and winter months). Bayeux is a two or three hour train ride from Paris, and makes a good base location for visiting the region.

It is really neat to see some of these locations in person; I saw several of the areas shown in these photos a few summers ago. BattleBus is a great tour company -- their guides are half-historian, half-storyteller, and they really help bring the locations alive. Nothing cheesy here; if you're interested in WW2 history, or just saw Band of Brothers and want to see where most of it took place, then check out these guys for tours. I can't recommend them highly enough.

Nearby sights :
- Utah Beach
- Omaha Beach
- The American Cemetery
- The Canadian Cemetery
- Mere St. Eglise village
- Pointe du Hoc cliffs / bunker complex / coastline
- The American Airborne museum
- The Canadian Juno Beach museum
- Juno Beach

Excellent contrib.

Good one Conq. You were never given the appreciation you deserve over on ADT !

Sadly, many of the Allied soldiers in those pics are still in France, Belgium and Holland. Many of the divisions that were in the Normandy campaign suffered 80-100% casualties before V-E Day. A few even suffered greater than 100% casualties. Replacements and their replacements and their replacements and their replacements usually lasted no more than a few days in combat. The European campaign was a meatgrinder.