An European adventure hardly sounds complete without a trip to Normandy. So with her children in tow, SHIRANI TISDALE trod the ground where concrete gun bunkers once thundered with explosions, past grave markers and poignant reminders of those who fought and died for freedom.

A parachutist dummy dangles from the steeple of the church in St. Mere-Eglise, representing the town hero, John Steele.

“What does the ’D’ in D-Day actually stand for?” my sister queried our private tour guide as our minivan travelled south through the Normandy countryside.

Turns out it was just an initial, meant to indicate the very first day of that historic invasion. Days after that followed in quick succession and were D-1, D-2 and so on. In fact, in French, June 4, 1944 is called J-Jour, the French translation for day.

Being married to a military man, I knew that our European adventure would have to include a trip to Normandy sooner or later.

I also knew that I would have to abandon my usual tactics, ditch my trusty Rick Steve guidebook and find someone with a clear and detailed grasp of history.
The thought of piling on and off a bus with a hundred other tourists was not my idea of fun.

I wanted to be able to appreciate the sites at our own pace, keep my children engaged and interested on a personal level, and target those things that were of special interest to our family.

After an Internet search, and at the recommendation of the owners of the place we were planning on staying, I hired Ted Malandine.

An Englishman, Ted and his wife Linda had run a bed and breakfast in the Normandy countryside for 18 years.

His father had been one of the preeminent WWII photographers, travelling with General Bernard Montgomery and taking shots of countless historic moments.

We hired Ted to ride along in our minivan with us for a day to get his unique perspective and engrossing commentary. We were not disappointed.

Our first stop of the day was above the small harbour town of Arromanche.

Having read about the Mulberry harbours, I wanted to see them in person.

The decision had been made that harbours were needed to shelter the invasion fleet.

Unfortunately, existing harbours were too heavily fortified and so the English, in an amazing feat of engineering and ingenuity, decided to create harbours where there were none before.

They laid the groundwork for the harbours by towing over old ships from England and then sinking them at the desired depth. They then towed huge cement blocks across the channel.

The blocks were hollow and once they were in the correct position, they were allowed to fill with seawater and sunk, creating the artificial harbours.

While there was more than one harbour created this way, the one at Arromanche still survives and can be seen clearly.

My youngest son’s sole request for the day was to see guns. Most of those have been destroyed or removed but there are still complete gun batteries located at Longue-Sur-Mer, where we headed next.

The concrete gun bunkers were formidable and still looked indestructible despite being over 60 years old.

They bore scars from the bombardment they received from the ocean but it was hard to imagine ships that far off shore, bobbing up and down on the waves, and actually hitting these cliff top targets.

Hit them they did, though, as evidenced by not just the numerous small chips in the bunker’s exterior but also the torn metal carriage of the gun itself.

Despite the deafening (and most probably, fatal) explosions, this battery continued firing on Allied naval craft well after noon.

From Longue-Sur-Mer, we travelled along the coast to Omaha Beach, one of the two American landing beaches.

To avoid the metal beach obstacles and the mines designed to tear up the bottoms of the landing crafts, the landings had taken place at low tide, with a 300-metre expanse of sand stretching between the landing troops and the bottom of the dunes.

Once they crossed that, they had to fight their way up the valley while German troops on the bluffs continued to fire on them.

Estimates vary, but close to 2,500 Americans and 3,000 other Allies died during the first day of fighting.

When we visited, the tide was high. The sun was shining and children were walking along the rocks throwing sticks for dogs to fetch. A lifetime away from the events of that day.

Overlooking Omaha Beach is the American Cemetery. Unlike the Germans or the British, who commemorate or bury their dead near the battlefields where they perish, the American tradition is to have a central burial ground for each campaign.

At this beautiful and poignant site, there are grave markers to commemorate the almost 10,000 men that died in the Normandy campaign.

The grass is immaculate, and the rows of crosses and stars are precisely in line and startlingly white.

People walk quietly amongst the graves, speaking in whispers, and the only distraction is the ever-present grounds crew, keeping things absolutely perfect.

In the midst of death and destruction, it must be very difficult to find a “feel good” story.

The unbelievably good fortune of Private John Steele provided just such a tale for the people of St Mere-Eglise.

When the paratrooper landings went badly awry due to the dark, the winds, and off-target drops, Private Steele’s landing was abruptly cut short when his parachute snagged on the church steeple in the town square.

He hung there for hours while Germans in the steeple shot at Americans below — and survived.

Though wounded in the leg, Private Steele convalesced in England and re-entered the war at a later point. After the war, he returned to St Mere-Eglise regularly where he was feted and treated as a hero.

Today, a mock up of his parachute and a dummy hang from the same church steeple.

A short drive away, there is a small monument at La Fiere dedicated to the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne.

Frequently overlooked by tourists in favour of the more well known sites, it rests on a gentle grassy knoll above the low swamp lands where so many of the paratroopers lost their lives.

In the distance, you can see the church and the farm house where the Germans and the Americans holed up, each hoping to stop the advance of the other across a tiny French country road.

For our final stop of the day, we visited a German military cemetery. Unlike the American cemetery which was perched on a hill and left one with an impression of light, this was a more sombre place.

Each grey stone cross bears the name of several soldiers. It is the final resting place for 10,152 men.

While we could not fit any more stops into the time we had, the entire countryside in that area of Normandy is an outdoor museum.

For WWII buffs and even those who didn’t think that part of history held much interest for them, like myself, there are countless places to stop and explore.

We took time a couple days later to stop at Pointe du Hoc where the Rangers made their famous cliff ascent.

It was the end of the day and the shadows were lengthening. There were very few people around. Sea gulls were flying overhead and yellow wildflowers bloomed in profusion. We were stunned by the size of the craters that still remain in the ground, many large enough for a group of people to stand in.

The boys wandered off to explore the remainders of bunkers and to chase each other in and out of craters.

My sister started off down a cliff top path, intent apparently on seeing how far she could get.

My husband was on a mission to discover all the old gun placements that he had seen on the information placard, hunting through the overgrown mounds.

And I was left on my own to contemplate the stillness of the place and remember those that had gone before.