D-Day Beaches Private Tour from Bayeux: Omaha, Pointe du Hoc, Sainte-Mere-Eglise and the American Cemetery

Your driver meets you at your Bayeux hotel at the agreed time. The beaches are less than thirty minutes from the city center, so the day begins quickly.

This small Norman village was one of the first places liberated on D-Day. Paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division were dropped here in the early hours of June 6, with some landing directly in the village square. The most famous episode involves John Steele, whose parachute caught on the church steeple. He hung there, playing dead, before eventually escaping. A paratrooper figure still hangs from the church today, and several museums in the village document the night's events.

Perched on steep cliffs between Omaha and Utah Beach, Pointe du Hoc was a critical German artillery position targeted on D-Day. US Army Rangers scaled the cliffs under fire using ropes and ladders to destroy the battery. The site remains largely as it was left after the battle, with bomb craters, ruined bunkers, and German gun emplacements still intact across the headland.

Omaha was the bloodiest of the five D-Day landing zones. American forces faced heavily fortified German positions on the bluffs above the beach, and the early assault waves suffered severe casualties. Walking the wide stretch of sand today, it is possible to study the terrain and begin to understand the scale of what took place here on the morning of June 6.

Set on a bluff directly above Omaha Beach, the American Cemetery holds the graves of 9,387 US soldiers killed during the landings and the Battle of Normandy. The rows of white crosses and Stars of David, the chapel, and the Wall of the Missing create a setting of great solemnity. An on-site museum and interactive exhibition provide historical context for the events of June 6 and the weeks that followed.