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

1. Jour 1 : Arrive in Paris

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

   • Environ 1 h de route
   • Welcome dinner
   • Nuit : Paris
   Détail du jour 1

   Fly into Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) or Orly (ORY), and a driver meets you in the arrivals hall for the transfer into the city, about 45 minutes to an hour depending on traffic. 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. 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

   Temps libre : Free until the evening briefing

   Activité : Plan to land by about 3 pm to reach the briefing; the latest arrival time is confirmed with your final itinerary.

2. Jour 2 : 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
   Détail du jour 2

   We start on the Île de la Cité, the island where Paris began, with timed entry to Sainte-Chapelle at opening, around 9 am, before the queue builds. 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. 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. 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)

   Option plus facile : Skip the afternoon at the Orsay and rest at the hotel; the museum is a short taxi ride from most central hotels.

   Temps libre : Evening free

   Activité : About 8 km on foot with metro hops. The Musée d'Orsay closes on Mondays, so on a Monday departure we visit the Musée de l'Orangerie and Monet's Water Lilies instead (the Orangerie closes on Tuesdays, when the Orsay is open).

3. Jour 3 : Monet's garden at Giverny, then Rouen

   Paris to Giverny, then Rouen

   • Environ 2.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Rouen
   Détail du jour 3

   We leave Paris at about 8 am to reach Giverny, an hour and a quarter west along the Seine, for the 9:30 opening. Monet lived here from 1883 until his death in 1926 and spent those years making the garden he painted. Our timed tickets put us in the first entry, so you walk the Clos Normand flower beds and the water garden, with its green Japanese bridge and lily pond, before the day's crowds build. Inside the pink house are his yellow dining room and his collection of Japanese prints. 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

   Option plus facile : Skip the Rouen old-town walk and wait for the group at a café on the cathedral square; the hotel is a short walk away.

   Option plus active : Climb the Côte Sainte-Catherine on foot from the river (about 30 minutes, steep) while the van drives up to meet you at the viewpoint.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Rouen

   Activité : Giverny is open from about 1 April to 1 November, which sets this trip's season. Paths are gravel and can be crowded by the lily pond. About 6 to 8 km on foot over the day.

   

4. Jour 4 : Honfleur and Juno Beach, on to Bayeux

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

   • Environ 3 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Bayeux
   Détail du jour 4

   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. 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. 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

   Option plus facile : Sit out the Honfleur walk at a café on the Vieux Bassin, and see the Juno Beach Centre without walking the beach.

   Option plus active : Walk the Honfleur quays out to the jetty at the river mouth before lunch, and the Juno beach front east to the Maison des Canadiens at Bernières-sur-Mer (about 3 km).

   Temps libre : Evening free in Bayeux

   Activité : About 5 to 8 km on foot, on cobbles in Honfleur and sand at Juno.

   

5. Jour 5 : 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

   • Environ 2 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Bayeux
   Détail du jour 5

   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

   Option plus facile : Stay on the paved paths at Pointe du Hoc and the cemetery and skip the walk on the sand at Omaha; the van is parked close by at every stop.

   Option plus active : Walk the length of Omaha Beach from the Vierville exit to the Les Braves sculpture, about 3 km on firm sand at low tide.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Bayeux

   Activité : About 6 to 10 km on foot, on sand, grass and the cratered, uneven ground at Pointe du Hoc. Bring a windproof layer; the clifftops are exposed.

6. Jour 6 : Utah Beach, Sainte-Mère-Église and a night on the Mont

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

   • Environ 3 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Mont-Saint-Michel
   Détail du jour 6

   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. 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. 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)

   Option plus facile : Skip the walk to the war cemetery and take a slow breakfast in Bayeux; at the Mont, ride the shuttle and stay in the lower village for the evening.

   Option plus active : Walk out along Utah Beach from the museum, then the full circuit of the Mont's ramparts at dusk.

   Temps libre : Early morning free in Bayeux; evening on the island

   Activité : The Grande Rue on the island is steep and cobbled, and hotels there have narrow stairs. Bring a small bag for the night.

   

7. Jour 7 : The abbey at opening, the TGV to Paris

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

   • Environ 1 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Paris
   Détail du jour 7

   We climb to the abbey at opening (9 or 9:30 am depending on the month), ahead of the first shuttles of day visitors. Your guide takes you through the abbey church on the summit, the cloister that hangs over the bay, and the Merveille, the 13th-century Gothic monastery buildings stacked up the north face of the rock. Mont-Saint-Michel and its bay have been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1979. Then it is back down the Grande Rue and across to the van. 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. 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

   Option plus facile : Skip the climb to the abbey and spend the morning on the ramparts and in the lower village.

   Option plus active : Walk the full circuit of the ramparts before breakfast, while the island is still empty.

   Temps libre : Late afternoon free in Paris

   Activité : A few hundred steps up through the village and the abbey; the descent is by the gardens and the Grande Rue.

8. Jour 8 : Depart Paris

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

   • Environ 1 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner
   Détail du jour 8

   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. 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)

   Option plus facile : With a late flight, leave your bags at the hotel and keep the day gentle: a café breakfast and the Tuileries garden nearby, back in time for your transfer.

   Temps libre : Free until your transfer

   Activité : Any flight time works; for an international flight, plan to leave the hotel about three and a half hours before departure.

Faune et météo : Normandy weather changes fast in any month, so bring a rain layer even in July. April and May bring Giverny's tulips and irises; summer brings the longest evenings on the Mont and the biggest crowds; September and October are quieter and cooler. The week around 6 June brings commemorations, closed roads and full hotels on the beaches, and we plan departures around it.

• Paris2 nuits
• Rouen1 nuit
• Bayeux2 nuits
• Mont-Saint-Michel1 nuit
• Paris1 nuit