Normandy - a shorter road trip
- jochengielen
- 11 minutes ago
- 9 min read
A quick road trip in June 2026
Day 1: Driving in a heatwave!
Yes this is yet another adventure for just a few days, to … Normandy! It seems to be a normal road trip but this time there are some differences and … issues! I was actually planning to leave very early, about just after midnight or so … but I was too tired from doing some urgent work the evening before so I overslept a bit and eventually left at about 6am and drove towards France … no big deal right? … Wrong! This time Europe was experiencing a heatwave of up to 37°C … and I was driving my 2010 Mercedes Vito van with an air conditioning that couldn't handle this kind of heat, it was either old, broken or empty (to be determined later when the van goes in for maintenance!).
About this van! This is yet another piece of equipment I recently acquired for a project and it's a 2010 Mercedes Vito with 5 seats and a separated loading compartment, the van is in overall good condition and has AC, good tires, electric windows in the front, a sliding door on the right and an aftermarket basic radio (something I might change in the near future). I just added a portable GPS and a magnet to hold my iPhone. The van also has a roof rack for large items or work equipment and a tow bar. I also added hooks for all the keys on my trips, 4 Motorola radios for communication when driving in convoy with my second van (Mercedes Sprinter) or other people.
Preparing for this trip! I had booked this trip way before I knew about the heat but once it was clear this was going to be hotter than hot, I prepared some more things.
I made sure to have sunblock within reach all the time for those moments when it would be needed.
I had a large pack of wet cleaning wipes next to me for cleaning up after eating or drinking on the road.
I recently got hold of 2 free coolers (non-electric) so I filled one of them with all my favorite soft drinks and a large bottle of water that was now frozen from a night in the freezer, this cooled down all the other drinks for the first few hours, after this melted I could still drink cold water and just bought some ice cubes in a truck stop to fill up the cooler with them.
Sunglasses within reach once the sun was up!
Some cookies for those small hunger periods.
The GPS was pre-programmed a few days in advance.
My iPhone was charged and on the magnet within reach.
A large garbage bag that I could just dump in a public bin once full, that way I don't have a van full of wrappers or empty bottles and cans at the end of the ride.
It could sound strange but I also had some disposable cups and painkiller with me, as it happened to me once before that the heat and sun gave me a fierce headache, so this time I was prepared.
This was also the reason why I had my cap on the entire drive and the window was open to some extent all the time.
All this preparation made sure I had pretty easy drive all the way from home to my hotel in Saint-Lô … and that was the second challenge! About halfway into the drive I noticed an email saying the hotel I booked was closed due to a fire and I could call this hotel reception number to find another option … so I stopped at a truck stop and called them … I could choose either a cheap Ibis Budget hotel or a normal Ibis nearby, the cheap Ibis Budget had AC and the Ibis did not, considering I had actually booked Mercure, I decided to take option B, the Ibis without AC but good breakfast. It would later prove to be the right choice for this trip, even with the hot nights I was about to experience.
So later that afternoon I arrived at the Ibis hotel in Saint-Lô and rested a bit first before taking a cold shower and organising the room. Eventually I went out to go visit the site I was here for, I needed to locate a building that was used in June 1944 by the German military, possibly the SS to interrogate prisoners of war, in this location they executed 2 American soldiers and it was my mission to confirm a probable location where this happened (more about that will become clear in the future!).
Then I drove North to the Pointe de Saire lighthouse where I arrived by evening with a perfect evening sky and no wind, so I took out the drone for a nice flight. The lighthouse is small and built inside the walls of La Redoute de Réville, a small fort on the point of land near Réville. I went back to my hotel and only stopped at a small truck stop along the way to get a small dinner before going to bed, tomorrow would be a good day for exploring some things I could use in my research for this project!
Day 2 – D-day landings of 1944.
Today started with breakfast in my hotel, which was basic but good, as expected from an Ibis hotel in a more industrial area. Next would be a place I have somehow always bypassed in the past, today it was time to visit Sainte-Mère-Eglise with specifically the Airborne Museum. This museum covers the dropping of paratroopers in 1944 just an evening ahead of the landings, where one soldier got stuck on the church tower and this more or less saved his life, the scene is covered heavily in the famous 1962 movie “The Longest Day”. Today there is a parachute permanently fixed to the church tower as a reminder of the event. The museum is pretty big with 2 complete aircraft on display and many more smaller items. The church is accessible as well and the town is always vivid with restaurants and shops around the square, this was very needed in this heatwave and I went to get some cold drinks for the road, this gave me an extra boost
to survive the next leg on the road.
I went back to the parking, stopping briefly at the cemetery before going back on the road.
My next stop today was the Utah Beach museum, this one is smaller but there is a great collection to be seen as well and some of the memorials are located right next to the museum. The best part of the collection is the Martin B26 “Marauder”, this aircraft was very impressive to see!
By now it was time for me to get back to my hotel as this heatwave takes a heavy toll on what you can do in one day and I needed a cold shower and rest. In the evening I wanted to have dinner in my hotel but surprisingly the hotel restaurant ran out of food, luckily they gave me sone good directions to some local restaurants and I went to the city centre (where I originally booked a hotel of course) to find a riverboat bar on a boat, this used to be a boat doing river cruises in Antwerp years ago called “Jan Plezier IV”, she is now a floating bar, there wasn't much of a food menu so I decided to go to one of the restaurants opposite the street called Brasserie La Rotonde where I had a nice burger and chocolate mousse dessert, combined with a cappuccino to finish the evening. I spent the rest of the evening working on the photos, story and report for the next project.
Day 3 – Lighthouses.
My first stop today was the Cap de Carteret lighthouse, I was lucky enough that the weather was warm without wind so I was able to launch the drone in this spectacular location, I spent a few hours exploring the garden with photo exhibition around the lighthouse and the great cliffs from where I could take some good shots, the lighthouse is open on certain hours but I of course visited in between opening times so I couldn't go up the tower itself.
I continued my drive to the next place I had planned, a beach from where you can view the lighthouse of “Le Sénéquet” in the distance. The beach has a good parking area and there is a small open air bar but this seemed to be closed, not exactly good business in this heat, they could have made loads of money if this bar would have been open, maybe this was the reason why the beach seemed to be deserted. Since there wasn't much else to see and do here I continued on my way to the next location.
The “Pointe d' Agon” lighthouse is located on a strip of land, easy to reach by car and plenty of space but … nothing to see or do except for walking in nature and see the lighthouse. I feel these places could be managed much better with small bars and shops at least, the lighthouse is closed off just like a technical cabin would be, I flew the drone around it but other than that I didn't have much else to do but to sit and relax a while with my notebook and a cold drink, luckily I had stopped for ice cubes earlier so all my drinks in the cooler were cold, nice to have on the road when there is a heatwave going on!
Since there wasn't much else to do and I didn't want to drive 90 minutes to another interesting location, I decided to head back to the hotel for some relaxing with a snack and drinks to finish my reports and some work I still had to do. The evening presented the same possibilities as yesterday and since the restaurant was good, I saw no reason to find another place and went back to the same place. This was my last evening before my long drive all the way back home tomorrow.
Day 4 – Driving back … with some stops along the way.
The last day started like the other with the hotel breakfast and a last cold shower before leaving. I headed towards Le Havre to visit a lighthouse that had somehow always been more or less off my radar, however now that I had 2 operational drones, I was better equipped to photograph is fully! My drone flew around the Fatouville lighthouse and I could even see the famous Pont de Normandie from the hight my drone was flying, this explained why the lighthouse was located here as it seems on the ground that it is really far inland.
I decided to spend a little more time in Le Havre with a quick shoot of the Le Havre lightship although the location is far from ideal for photography, then I found a thrift store and luckily they had a deck plan and price list of the SS France that I bought immediately. I went to see the remaining part of the ship as the tip of her bow is displayed in Le Havre, although in a poorly maintained area where it looks a bit forgotten.
By then it was time for the long drive home with only one more stop along the way, the recently started ferry route between Boulogne-Sur-Mer (France) and Cork (Ireland) gave me a chance to see one of the ships of this route entering Boulogne-Sur-Mer in the evening. The route is a new start-up by the Hibernia Line (https://hibernia-line.com) with 2 ships called Akka and St. Patrick, today it was the St. Patrick that would arrive in Boulogne-Sur-Mer so I had done my preparations and decided on the spot I was going to use for my photography, unfortunately there was a disturbing signal that prevented my drone from taking off so I had to do this shoot with my Canon only (I will try the drone here again in the future when possible). I managed to get some good shots of the ship and closed the day by leaving Boulogne-Sur-Mer behind to drive home, only stopping for fuel or refreshments along the way.
About the ship:
The St. Patrick is a ship I had seen and briefly photographed before as this ship was built in 2002 and operated for a while on the Zeebrugge (Belgium) to Rosyth (Scotland) route, in that period I was visiting Zeebrugge whenever possible to see the cruise ships visiting this port in order for the passengers to visit the famous city of Bruges (Belgium). On this occasion the Royal Princess was in port and I could photograph both her and the Superfast IX as the ship was called back then. The Superfast ships all have a distinctive profile and in the early years were very easily recognisable because of their red hulls and "wings" on the funnel. The ship has travelled along many operators and routes and spent a lot of time in the Baltic after the Zeebrugge service stopped. Eventually she ended up on this Boulogne-Cork service.
The route takes between 21 and 24 hours depending on the ship so these ferries are well equipped with entertainment, cabins and facilities for passengers to relax and enjoy the sailing in all conditions, although I can not speak from personal experience, so ... maybe I will try to take this route in the future some time.
The St. Patrick is 203 meters long and has a service speed of 25 knots with a top speed of 30 knots, she can carry 962 passengers and load 531 cars. She is surely worth a future visit!
THE END
Comments