Wednesday 22 June Cabourg, Pegasus bridge Ouistreham.

The annual Romantic film festival is held here at the Casino. This year it was 15-19 June, Andy breathes a sigh of relief.

I'm more interested in coming back to the Deauville annual American film festival 2- 16  Sept (just down the coast) open to the public and a smaller version of Cannes  €130 full pass, €30 a day , accommodation already fully booked up.

The grand hotel 

Stunning houses along the promenade, favoured by wealthy Parisians

Festival de Plage: getting it ready on the beach for Sunday 1st July when resorts fully open up to accommodate the French holiday period July/ August 

Big bonfire,  sad to miss it 

Beach provision 

Called in at the Pegasus bridge museum en route to the ferry.

Gliders were used instead of parachutes to help Allied forces to land, capture the bridges and push back the German presence 

A reconstruction of one of the 30  gliders used 

The bridge, which can be raised to allow shipping through, was moved to the museum and replaced by a longer bridge after the war ended, the canal having been widened. 

A model of the original bridge built  in meccano and displayed  in the museum.

We also saw sections of a Bailey Bridge, designed by Donald Bailey  which, with much practice, could be assembled in 36 minutes by a hundred soldiers, these bridges  were taken over by a Halifax which dropped 30 gliders who landed near enough to the target areas  to enable bridges to be built speedily across strategic river ways in this area in order to replace those  destroyed by the German forces on the evening before D - Day on 6 June 1944.

Apparently  German forces were geared up  to repel this action but no one dared to wake the sleeping Adolf Hitler to obtain the proceed order (according to Col Von Luck in a film shown of the glider action) , this was  a hinge movement in the east , around Cabourg and Merville , remarkable in its precision and vital  apparently to the success of D- Day).

  

Here is the bridge which replaced the post war built version , reconstructed in the 60's when the Orne was widened to allow larger  vessels to pass under it . We waited about 15 mins for it to rise to allow a barge through and to be lowered again. 

We arrived in Ouistreham where the Brittany  ferry goes. Andy bought some wine from Normandy Wines. The wind was very strong, making walking along the board walk and the cycle ride along the beach too uncomfortable to contemplate, so we rested in the van for a few hours and boarded the ferry at 11 pm.