On June 6, 1944, U.S. Army Rangers were assigned what many considered an impossible mission: scale a 30-meter cliff face under enemy fire and destroy a German battery threatening both Omaha and Utah Beach. They made it. Pointe du Hoc remains one of the most preserved D-Day sites in Normandy. Shell craters scar the earth. Concrete bunkers sit split open by Allied bombardment. Gun emplacements still face the Channel. Few places in Normandy are this raw.

Omaha was the bloodiest of the five landing beaches. American forces from the 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions faced heavily fortified German positions on the bluffs above — and paid an enormous price. Today the beach is wide, quiet, and edged by dunes. Standing here, looking out to sea, it is almost impossible to reconcile the stillness with what took place on that June morning. Your driver will give you time to walk, reflect, and take in the scale of it.

Perched on the bluffs above Omaha Beach, the Normandy American Cemetery holds 9,387 graves — soldiers, sailors, and airmen who gave their lives in the liberation of Western Europe. Rows of white marble crosses and Stars of David stretch across 70 acres of manicured lawn, facing west toward America. The site includes a memorial chapel, a Wall of the Missing bearing 1,557 names, and an interactive museum telling the story of the Normandy Campaign.