This guide is for you if you are planning a day on the D-Day beaches from Paris, and especially if someone in your family served there. It covers the preparation that makes the day mean more: what to look up before you leave, when the cemetery holds its ceremony, which dates change the coast, and how to stand at the sites with care.
Do your research before you leave Paris
The day goes deeper if you arrive with a name, a unit or a beach in mind.
The Normandy American Cemetery holds the graves of 9,389 American service members. Another 1,557 names are carved on the Walls of the Missing, in a semicircular garden on the east side of the memorial. A rosette beside a name means that person has since been recovered and identified.
The American Battle Monuments Commission, which runs the cemetery, has an online burial database. Search it before you go. If you find a relative, note exactly where the grave is. Staff in the visitor centre escort relatives to graves and memorial sites, and the commission asks families planning a grave visit to contact the cemetery ahead. Do that well before your date.
If your family's war was British or Canadian, the American sites are only part of the story. Juno Beach and the Canadian centre at Courseulles, or Pegasus Bridge, can take the place of one of our stops. Tell us when you book, so the day is planned around them. Our article on the D-Day beaches from Paris in one day sets out the four standard stops.
Dates that change the coast
The cemetery is open every day from 09:00 to 17:00, with last entry half an hour before closing. It closes only on 25 December and 1 January, and stays open on French public holidays.
Early June is different from the rest of the year. The anniversary of the landings is marked with ceremonies on all five beaches and in Sainte-Mère-Église, Bayeux and Arromanches. The programme runs for about two weeks around 6 June, and the dates change each year, so check them with the regional tourist board. Houses fly French, British, American and Canadian flags, and there are parachute drops, parades and fireworks.
If you want to see the commemorations, that is the time to come. If you want quiet at the graves, choose another month. Either way, give us your date early.
The flag ceremony
Every day, the cemetery lowers its flags one hour before it closes to the public. With a 17:00 closing time, that is around 16:00.
On our standard day you are at the cemetery at 12:30 and at Pointe du Hoc at 14:00, so the ceremony falls after you have left. Because the vehicle is yours, the order can change on the day. If the ceremony matters to you, say so when you book and we will look at the timing with you, keeping in mind that you are back in Paris in the evening and the drive is about three hours.
Reading each site
Arromanches
The harbour off the beach was named Port Winston, after Churchill, who was closely involved in planning it. It was built to last about three months and served for around five. Some 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles and four million tonnes of supplies came ashore through it. The large concrete blocks you see on the beach are what is left. On the seafront, the D-Day Museum uses scale models to show how the harbour was put together, and Arromanches 360 is a round cinema of archive film. Museum entrances are not included in the tour.
Omaha Beach and the cemetery
The cemetery sits on the bluff above Omaha, looking over the beach and the Channel. The footpath that once led from the cemetery down to the sand has been closed to the public since 2016 for security reasons. You reach the sand by road, at our Omaha stop.
Pointe du Hoc
This is the most fragile of the four. Foot traffic has worn the ground, and access to parts of the site is limited. Some structures are fenced off as unsafe, a landslide in November 2023 closed the platform on one of the bunkers, and visitors have been kept off parts of the cratered ground since 2019 to stop erosion. Stay on the marked paths. Rules here change as the cliff moves, so expect fences where you may have seen photographs of open ground.
By train, or with a driver
You can get to the area by rail. Trains run from Paris Saint-Lazare to Bayeux in about three hours, and from there you need taxis or a local tour, because the sites are spread along the coast. The cemetery is about 170 miles from Paris.
That works if you sleep a night or two in Bayeux. As a return trip from Paris in one day, it leaves you very little time on the coast. A private day keeps the door-to-door run, the order of the stops and the pace in your hands. If you are already spending a night in Caen or Bayeux, ask us, because starting there makes the day much shorter. The price depends on the size of your group; see it on the tour page.
What to bring
- Your burial search results, printed or saved offline, with the grave's location.
- Clothes for a full day outdoors. All four sites are in the open air.
- Shoes for sand and uneven ground at Pointe du Hoc.
- Money or a card for lunch and any museum you decide to visit.
- Something to read on the drive. Three hours each way is a long time to look at the motorway.
The cemetery is a place of burial still visited by families. Dress and behave as you would at any grave.
Who it suits, and who should think twice
It suits families with a link to the landings, readers of the history and anyone who wants to see the ground rather than read about it.
- Young children. The sites themselves are calm. The thirteen hours, about six of them in the car, are the hard part.
- Short stays in Paris. If you have only one free day and want less time in the car, our Versailles and Giverny day trip is ten hours.
- Groups of more than 16. Two vehicles travel together on one booking. Message us with your numbers.
Our guide to day trips from Paris sets this day against the other three.
Questions people ask
Is there anything to pay at the sites?
The beaches and the American Cemetery are free. Museum entrances are not included.
Can we cancel?
Yes. Cancel up to 24 hours before pick-up and you are refunded in full. See our cancellation page.
Booking the day
Do the burial search, contact the cemetery if you are visiting a grave, and check your date against early June. The pick-up, the stops and what is included are on the Normandy D-Day beaches day trip page, where you choose the size of your group and book.
