Caen Memorial Museum: Normandy WWII History
Caen Memorial Museum: A Powerful WWII Experience in Normandy
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If you are traveling in Normandy, France, I recommend a stop at the Caen Memorial Museum. On a recent trip to France, we had an extra day in our calendar that I left open for discovery. We were still staying in Caen at Hôtel La Fontaine Caen Centre, so we could either spend the day in Caen or we could take an early train back to Paris. Both were great options.
Why We Chose the Caen Memorial Museum
We let our son Tanner pick out what we did this day. This was his graduation trip after all. We had considered heading back to Paris and visiting some museums. However, after we checked in for our D-Day beaches tour a few days before, Tanner decided the Museum was how he wanted to spend this day. He chose well. The tour we booked for the D-Day beaches included tickets to the museum. I didn’t realize this when I was frantically booking this trip. Our tour guide was able to get the admission ticket people to let us use our free tickets a day later than we were supposed to. If this happens to you, ask; it was not a big deal at all.
How to Get to the Museum from Caen City Center
You can take the bus from the Center of Caen to the museum. It drops off right in front of the museum. As southerners from the United States, we are not used to public transportation, but it was easy. You can purchase a ticket from a machine at some bus stops. The stop at the Museum does not have a machine, but you can pay in Euros to the bus driver when you get on. It was less than 2 euros per person. He was able to give us a change on the bus since we did not have exact change.
Front of the Caen Memorial Museum
What to Expect Inside: Exhibits, Movie, and Bunker
The museum covers WW2, D-Day, the Cold War, and you can visit a former German bunker on which the museum is built. Don’t skip the movie; it was powerful. We have attention span issues in our family, but we all agreed it was worth sitting still. It brought tears to a few eyes in our family. We spent several hours exploring the museum.
The museum also has a cafe where you can grab a bite to eat. The menu is posted below. We enjoyed baguettes with ham and butter! So good! I even grabbed the D-Day beer.
The museum has lockers for your bags. If you are like us and travel with big backpacks, they wouldn’t fit in the locker, so we checked our bags with the front desk.
Final Thoughts: Is the Caen Memorial Museum Worth It?
Overall, this was a great way to spend a day on our vacation. My boys are already talking about going back to bring Grandad to the museum and the D-Day beaches tour. They loved it that much. If you are interested in booking the tour that includes admission to the museum, you can find it here.
If you enjoyed this post about the Caen Memorial Museum, be sure to check out my other posts on the region.
How we saved big on our trip to France (points and miles)
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