Caen

Today we explored the lovely city of Caen. Much of it was badly damaged following the 6th June 1944 D-Day landings. Caen is situated only 10 miles from the landing beaches but it was the 18th July before it was in Allied hands. Sadly, under orders from Hitler, the Germans were told to defend it to the death. On the 6th July an air-raid on Caen started a fire that raged for eleven days, and on the night of the 8/9th July 2,500 tons of bombs were dropped on the city. Fortunately, many of the churches and fortifications from the time of William the Conqueror survived. We visited a number of these and the photograph is of the cloisters of the Abbaye
Aux Hommes, some of the walls of which still bear the scars of the fighting that raged within its walls.