Day one in France was always going to be ambitious.
We had found a coastal cottage in Brittany that looked perfect for our family, but getting there from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport was going to be a haul: about four and a half hours by car, after an overnight flight across the Atlantic.
A month earlier, I had woken up early one morning and started studying the route to see what else we might be able to do along the way. I realized we would be passing close enough to Normandy that it felt almost irresponsible not to consider it. On paper, the plan looked something like this: Paris to Honfleur, then Arromanches-les-Bains, then the Normandy American Cemetery, then Pointe du Hoc, and finally on to Cancale.
It was clearly too much. Even without stopping long anywhere, and before factoring in bathroom breaks, food, and gas, we were looking at well over six hours on the road. But I still think having more options was better than having too few. We knew we could peel away as needed, and we had a pretty good sense of everyone’s priorities.
Adjusting on the go
The first problem came at the rental car counter.
The counter experience itself was fine. The Hertz staff member was polite, offered us coffee, and got us through pretty quickly. But when we got out to the car and tried to fit six people plus luggage into our supposedly “large” SUV, it became obvious almost immediately that this was not happening. There was absolutely no way we were getting everything in.
So back to the counter I went.
After a lot more time than I wanted to lose, and after agreeing to something like a €1,500 increase in the rental cost, we finally got a vehicle that actually fit our family and our stuff. It was painful, but by then there was no point in letting it ruin the day. We accepted it and moved on. Better planning would have saved us a lot of money and time, but once you are in it, you are in it.
By the time we finally got on the road, we were close to two hours behind. That forced the next round of decisions.
After some discussion in the car, and a little help from ChatGPT sorting through timing and tradeoffs, we dropped Honfleur and Arromanches-les-Bains. That let us protect the part of the day that mattered most to me and the other adults in the car: having enough time at the Normandy American Cemetery without feeling rushed.
We arrived shortly after 3 pm, with blue skies, a breeze, and temperatures in the low 60s. Honestly, the weather was much better than we had expected. We had prepared ourselves for gray, cool, rainy weather all week, so the beauty of the place coupled with perfect skies was a truly nice surprise.
Normandy, Then and Now
When we first walked in, we passed the visitor center and reflecting pool that leads out to the water, knowing our time was limited. A few steps further led us to see where the invasion began from the bluffs high above the shore.
It was beautiful. Peaceful, remote, full of color. Probably not all that different from how it looked before the invasion. Looking out over something so calm and so beautiful, it was impossible not to picture the scale of what happened there, and what it must have felt like to come ashore under fire and a high likelihood of being killed. All I could think about was the terror, the suffering, how young so many of those men were, and how many were injured or never made it off the beach.
The rows of crosses had a different effect. There, what I mostly felt was respect. Quiet, direct respect. Sons, brothers, fathers. So much life cut short in one place, for a cause that was plainly just. Whatever else you can say about war, fighting the Nazis and liberating Europe was morally right. I cannot really imagine what the world would look like if those men had not done what they did.
Standing in a place that represents American sacrifice at its best, I couldn’t stop thinking about how uneasy I feel about America’s role in the world right now. It is hard not to compare those two things. On one hand, this extraordinary example of courage, duty, and moral clarity. On the other, a modern America that increasingly looks erratic, irresponsible, and diminished in the eyes of many of our allies.
We had tried to prepare the boys a little for the visit by explaining what happened there and why it mattered. I could tell at least some of it was being understood. Owen, especially, had the kind of innocent questions a six-year-old asks when he is trying to process something enormous. I carried him through most of the cemetery, so I got to hear him work through it quietly in real time. I love hearing the way he processes the world.
We happened to time our visit so we could see the 4 pm flag-lowering ceremony. That was meaningful, though not quite what I had expected. It was less solemn and formal than I had imagined, and for some reason I had expected uniformed military personnel to be doing it. Still, I was glad we saw it.
Before leaving, we drove down to the beach itself and walked around a bit. I am glad we did, though I found that part less emotionally powerful than seeing the shore from above. Down on the beach, at least in the spot we visited, it is just not the landscape most of us carry around in our heads from movies, old footage, and photographs. It feels more ordinary in person. Like a beautiful, typical beach that the locals love to visit on a warm day. Not obviously historical.
By then it was getting late, and we still needed groceries before the Easter closures made that harder. So we got back in the car and finished the drive to Cancale.
The arrival felt like a true reward after hours of sleep-deprived travel.
The house was in the kind of cool, breezy, coastal countryside that feels like what you imagine the French countryside should be: remote, beautiful, and very much Old Europe. It was exactly what I was hoping for. We were completely drained by then, but I felt good about the choices we had made, and I think the rest of the family did as well. The day had been too ambitious on paper and expensive in ways I wish it had not been, but I do not think we got it wrong.
A Quiet Welcome in Cancale
After showing us the house, our host stayed for a bit and chatted with us. He told us he loves America, and when I asked whether he had been there before, he said yes, a few times. He said he wanted to go back, but “the context right now is…” and then made a hand gesture that said the rest. We both knew what he meant.
At one point he said, “You’re probably wondering what we all think about you,” and then quickly reassured us that we should not worry, that people know it is not the American people. That was genuinely comforting. We had wondered, at least a little, how welcome we would feel on this trip.
What an awkward time to be traveling to Europe.
The first time I went to Europe, at fifteen, and even on later trips in my early twenties, the general feeling toward Americans seemed different. There was still plenty of confusion about us, especially around guns and school shootings, but there was also a kind of admiration and respect for our country and our people underneath it. Now the mood feels darker. Less puzzled, more alarmed. More like people see us as unstable and led by someone who has lost it.
It is one thing to visit a place that reminds you of what America once represented to much of the world. It is another to do it while wondering how much of that trust and goodwill we have burned through.
That was day one.
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