MONTEBOURG TO SAINT-MERE-EGLISE 7.05 MILES
The day started by walking from the hotel in Valognes to the bus station and then getting the No 1 Maneo Bus back to Montebourg. Alighting from the bus where we had got on yesterday in the Place Albert L'Pelerin we headed south east down what is the main street. We passed the Hotel de Ville on the left and the road ahead changed its name to Rue Paul Lecacheaux, named after a Montebourg born archivist and historian of the Channel (1873 -1938). At 0.21 miles we turned left on the D42 in the St Vaast direction but almost immediately turned right down an alleyway. We passed the ancient wash house in the picture below.
Below was the view looking back to the town on its slight hill, the lavoir (washhouse) can be seen on the left and just in the picture and to the right was a lake.
At a T-junction with a rough track at 0.36 miles we followed the way-marks right onto a newish road and went straight across on to a waymarked narrow vehicular track that passed to the right of a coach park and then a football stadium and out into the countryside. At 0.66 miles at a T-junction with another track called Chasse de Jerusalem we followed the GR223 left. The track then turned right and at 1,04 miles came onto a road at a bend where we bore slightly to the right nearly in the same direction. At 1.17 miles there was a cross roads with the larger D115 where we went straight across onto another narrow tarmac road. It bent right and after a straight at 1.47 miles we were in the hamlet of Joret. The road abruptly changed to a footpath between hedges and continued in the same south easterly direction and at 1.68 miles we could look into the yard of the Chateau in the photo below.
Immediately after there was a crossroads of tracks with a farm on the right, we continued straight on along the track which later bent left and at 1.91 miles exited onto the D115 where we followed the road to the right. At 2.09 miles we crossed the bridge over the Ruisseau de Coisel in the picture below.
The road then took us into the village of Joganville. At 2.17 miles at a crossroads, with the church on our left, we went right on the D69 signed to Ecausseville. Almost immediately we forked left on to another road signed to Hameau Picad. The narrow road bent around to the left and after a straight (see photo below) and just before the buildings in Picard we forked right off the road onto a vehicular track at 2.39 miles.
On reaching a road at 2.92 miles we turn right along it and entered the village of Edmondeville. At 3.12 miles we were in the centre at a crossroads with a larger road with the church on our left. We went straight across onto the D214 and 3.20 miles went left off the road onto a vehicular track. At 3.58 miles it was straight across a crossroads of tracks. Photo below taken on the track.
At 3.80 miles we went straight on where a track went off to the left. At 4.03 miles we joined a tarmac road at a bend in it. The hamlet of Le Bisson was to the left but we continued straight on along the road, at 4.13 miles passing a track on the right. We were on a route called Chasse des Parraugues (name has something to do with dog kennels). At 4.55 miles we went left at a fork in the road, crossed a bridge over a stream called Pont Perce and then at 4.60 miles forked right off the road onto another rough vehicular track. At 4.82 miles where a track went left we went straight on. At 5.11 miles there was the remains of an ancient building on the right and then we reached a crossroads with a road. We went straight across on another road towards a farm ahead where at 5.34 miles the tarmac abruptly ended and a rough vehicular track continued and we took the right fork (almost straight on) immediately afterwards. This was the Chasse du Monet. The route got rather muddy and narrow at times and at 5.79 miles we emerged onto a road and went straight across onto a wider rough vehicular road. At 6.29 miles at a fork near some houses we went right down a track signposted as a no through road for cars. We followed the GR223 which takes the track on the left at 6.38 miles which comes out onto a road in the village of Beauvais at 6.54 miles where we went right on the Chemin de Beauvais. At 6.69 miles at a road junction with the Ferme-Musee du Cotentin on the right ( http://patrimoine.manche.fr/ferme-musee-cotentin-N.asp ) we went left on a road called Rue de Beauvais, After going straight on at the first cross roads and then forking and bending right we reached at 6.90 miles the D974 the Voie de la Liberte which is the main road through the town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise although the town now has a bypass (the E3).
We turned left along the D974 towards the town centre. There are a series of display boards explaining the war time history and its liberation. Outside the Hotel de Ville at 7.05 miles was the bus stop we needed to get the No 1 Maneo bus back again to Valognes but it was lunchtime and we went to explore the town. As featured in the film "The Longest Day" the liberation of the town did not go entirely to plan and The early landings, at about 0140 directly on the town, resulted in heavy casualties for the paratroopers. Some buildings in town were on fire that night, and they illuminated the sky, making easy targets of the descending men. Some were sucked into the fire. Many hanging from trees and utility poles were shot before they could cut loose.
In italics above and below is an extract from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte-M%C3%A8re-%C3%89glise
A well-known incident involved paratrooper John Steele of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), whose parachute caught on the spire of the town church, and could only observe the fighting going on below. He hung there limply for two hours, pretending to be dead, before the Germans took him prisoner. Steele later escaped from the Germans and rejoined his division when US troops of the 3rd Battalion, 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment attacked the village, capturing thirty Germans and killing another eleven. The incident was portrayed in the movie The Longest Day by actor Red Buttons.
A dummy is still hanging from the tower and is much photographed by visitors to the nearby D-Day Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_Museum_(Sainte-M%C3%A8re-%C3%89glise)
There are plenty of souvenir shops catering for the thousands of visitors every year, I could not resist having a photograph taken by a dummy outside one of the shops.
Re-enactment of the parachute landing in the square - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzHme4zIkPQ
No comments:
Post a Comment