Tour Day 3 - Bayeux to Ducey

Got up bright an early today again today, we all regrouped again at about 9:00am. some of the guys where suffering from their curries from last night.

We set out and visted the British cemetery in Bayeux. Then we encounter the rain again on the way to Pointe Du Hoc via several very muddy roads, which seemed to be a feature of the day.

Pointe Du Hoc is a clifftop location on the coast of Normandy in northern France. It lies 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Omaha Beach, and stands on 100 ft (30 m) tall cliffs overlooking the sea. It was a point of attack by the U.S. 2nd Ranger Battalion during the Battle of Normandy in World War II.

We left Pointe Du Hoc as the weather was brighting and headed over to Sainte-Mère-Église. Unfortunately we arrived 10 minutes before the airborne museum was closing for 2 hours. It was decided that we would ride our bikes on some nice roads rather than wait 2 hours for the museum to re-open.

Sainte-Mère-Église main claim to fame is that it played a significant part in the World War II Normandy landings because this village stood right in the middle of route N13, which the Germans would have most likely used on any significant counter-attack on the troops landing on Utah and Omaha Beaches. In the early morning of 6 June 1944 mixed units of the U.S. 82nd Airborne and U.S. 101st Airborne Divisions occupied the town in Operation Boston, giving it the claim to be one of the first towns liberated in the invasion.

We arrived at Ducey and our rather nice Best Western Hotel a converted old mill. Steve booked us into the only restaurant open in town that night. Steve was slightly unimpressed that they sold no other alcohol other than wine. After the meal we visited an Irish Bar that didn't sell Guinness, sacrilege surely.

Look at the state of my bike!!