Paris and Normandy: the D-Day Beaches and Mont-Saint-Michel

Arrive in Paris

Paris Charles de Gaulle or Orly airport to your hotel in central Paris

• Welcome dinner
• Nuit : Paris
• Environ 1 h de route

Après-midi

Rooms are usually ready from mid-afternoon; if you land early, leave your bags at the hotel and walk down to the river. We choose a central hotel with the Seine, a metro station and cafés a short walk away, because on this trip Paris is something you walk, not something you watch through a coach window. At about 6 pm your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing: how the week is paced, what to pack in a small overnight bag for Mont-Saint-Michel, and how the long D-Day day works.

Soir

Then we walk together to a neighbourhood bistro for a welcome dinner with a glass of French wine.

Compris

• Pick-up at Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) or Orly (ORY)
• Welcome briefing with your guide
• Welcome dinner at a Paris bistro

Activités en option

• An easy after-dinner walk along the Seine with your guide to see the bridges lit up

Sainte-Chapelle at opening and the Impressionists

Île de la Cité to the Left Bank, then the Musée d'Orsay

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Paris

Matin

Its upper chapel is walled with 13th-century stained glass, fifteen tall windows that tell the Bible story, and the morning sun comes through the east end. A few minutes' walk away is Notre-Dame, reopened in December 2024 after the 2019 fire, its cleaned stone pale and bright inside.

Après-midi

We cross the Pont Neuf, the oldest standing bridge in the city, and walk the Left Bank lanes to a sit-down bistro lunch. In the afternoon your guide takes you through the Musée d'Orsay, a former railway station, concentrating on the Impressionists: Monet's paintings of Rouen Cathedral and of his water garden at Giverny, both of which you see for real tomorrow.

Soir

The evening is yours, for a Seine cruise, Montmartre or a long dinner.

Compris

• Sainte-Chapelle at opening with your guide
• Notre-Dame de Paris
• Walk across the Pont Neuf and through the Left Bank
• Sit-down lunch in a Paris bistro
• Musée d'Orsay with your guide, focused on the Impressionists

Activités en option

• Evening cruise on the Seine
• Eiffel Tower summit (timed tickets booked ahead)

Monet's garden at Giverny, then Rouen

Paris to Giverny, then Rouen

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Rouen
• Environ 2.5 h de route

Après-midi

After lunch in the village we drive about an hour on to Rouen, stopping first on the Côte Sainte-Catherine, the hill above the city, for the view down the Seine to the cathedral spire. Your guide then walks you through the old centre: the cathedral front Monet painted more than thirty times, the Gros-Horloge clock and the Place du Vieux-Marché, where Joan of Arc was burned in 1431.

Compris

• Monet's house and gardens at Giverny, first timed entry
• Sit-down lunch in Giverny
• The view over Rouen from the Côte Sainte-Catherine
• Walk through Rouen's old town with your guide: the cathedral, the Gros-Horloge and the Place du Vieux-Marché

Honfleur and Juno Beach, on to Bayeux

Rouen to Honfleur, then Juno Beach at Courseulles-sur-Mer and Bayeux

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Bayeux
• Environ 3 h de route

Matin

A morning drive of about an hour and ten minutes down the Seine valley brings us to Honfleur, the harbour town at the river's mouth. Walk around the Vieux Bassin, the old harbour lined with tall, narrow slate-hung houses, and into Sainte-Catherine, a church built of timber by the town's shipwrights after the Hundred Years' War, with its bell tower standing apart across the square. There is a Canadian thread here: Samuel de Champlain sailed from Honfleur in 1608 on the voyage that founded Quebec.

Après-midi

After a sit-down lunch by the harbour we drive about an hour and ten minutes west to Courseulles-sur-Mer and the Juno Beach Centre, the museum of the Canadians who came ashore here on 6 June 1944, about 14,000 of them on the first day. From there it is twenty minutes to Bayeux, our base for two nights, a town that came through 1944 almost undamaged.

Soir

The evening is free for a walk past the cathedral and dinner in the old streets.

Compris

• Honfleur with your guide: the Vieux Bassin and the wooden church of Sainte-Catherine
• Sit-down lunch in Honfleur
• The Juno Beach Centre at Courseulles-sur-Mer and the beach in front of it

A full day on the D-Day beaches

Bayeux to Arromanches, Longues-sur-Mer and Pointe du Hoc, then Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Bayeux
• Environ 2 h de route

Après-midi

This is the day other trips give an afternoon. We give it from 9 am until the cemetery closes in the late afternoon, with a specialist local D-Day guide alongside your See Sight Tours guide, and a group small enough to hear every word on the sand. We start at Arromanches, where the concrete caissons of the Mulberry harbour, towed across the Channel to land supplies after D-Day, still sit in the bay; see them from the clifftop and in the D-Day Museum on the seafront. Heading west we stop at the Longues-sur-Mer battery, where the German guns are still in their casemates. At Pointe du Hoc you walk among the bomb craters on the clifftop the US Rangers climbed on 6 June. After a sit-down lunch on the coast we go down onto Omaha Beach, to the Les Braves sculpture, and end at the Normandy American Cemetery above the beach, where more than 9,000 Americans lie, in time for the flag-lowering late in the afternoon.

Compris

• A specialist local D-Day guide for the full day
• Arromanches: the Mulberry harbour from the cliff and the D-Day Museum
• The Longues-sur-Mer battery
• Pointe du Hoc
• Sit-down lunch on the coast
• Omaha Beach and the Les Braves sculpture
• The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, with the flag-lowering ceremony

Utah Beach, Sainte-Mère-Église and a night on the Mont

Bayeux to Utah Beach and Sainte-Mère-Église, then Mont-Saint-Michel

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Mont-Saint-Michel
• Environ 3 h de route

Matin

A slower morning in Bayeux. The cathedral, consecrated in 1077, and the Bayeux War Cemetery, the largest Commonwealth cemetery of the Second World War in France, are both a short walk from the centre. Mid-morning we drive about an hour west, some 60 km, to Utah Beach, the westernmost landing beach, where the museum stands on the dunes the US 4th Infantry Division crossed on 6 June. A few minutes inland is Sainte-Mère-Église, where American paratroopers came down in the dark before dawn; a figure hangs from the church tower in memory of the one whose parachute caught there.

Après-midi

After lunch it is about an hour and three quarters south to Mont-Saint-Michel. We arrive late in the afternoon, cross by the shuttle and the footbridge with an overnight bag, and check in on the island or right beside it. As the day visitors leave, the lanes go quiet.

Soir

Walk the ramparts at dusk, watching the tide if it is coming in, then sit down to dinner together and see the abbey floodlit.

Compris

• Bayeux Cathedral and the Bayeux War Cemetery
• The Utah Beach Museum
• Sainte-Mère-Église and its church
• Sit-down lunch on the way
• The shuttle across to Mont-Saint-Michel
• Dinner on or beside the island

Activités en option

• A walk across the bay sands with a licensed bay guide, where the tide times on your date allow (never cross the bay without one)

The abbey at opening, the TGV to Paris

Mont-Saint-Michel to Rennes, then the TGV to Paris Montparnasse

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Paris
• Environ 1 h de route

Après-midi

Rather than a four-hour drive back to Paris, we go about an hour to Rennes, have a sit-down lunch near the station, and take the TGV, about an hour and a half to Paris Montparnasse. A van meets us at the station for the short ride to the hotel.

Soir

The late afternoon is free for anything you missed on day 2, and in the evening we sit down together for a farewell dinner.

Compris

• The abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel at opening with your guide
• Sit-down lunch in Rennes
• TGV from Rennes to Paris Montparnasse
• Transfer from the station to your hotel
• Farewell dinner in Paris

Activités en option

• A late-night Seine cruise after dinner

Depart Paris

Your hotel in central Paris to Charles de Gaulle or Orly airport

• Petit-déjeuner
• Environ 1 h de route

Matin

The trip ends after breakfast. A driver takes you from the hotel to Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) or Orly (ORY) at a time set by your flight, about 45 minutes to an hour by road; allow more in the weekday morning rush.

Soir

Your guide checks everyone's transfer time at the farewell dinner, so there is nothing to arrange on the day. If your flight leaves in the evening, the hotel can hold your bags while you spend a last few hours in the city: the Marais, the Luxembourg Garden, or the Orangerie (closed Tuesdays) if you have not yet seen Monet's Water Lilies. Many guests add a night or two before or after the trip. Ask us when you book and we will add extra nights at the same hotel, or quote a day at Versailles or a few nights among the Loire châteaux.

Compris

• Drop-off at Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) or Orly (ORY)