Going for a week in Normandy and then a week in Brittany.
When in Normandy, I would like to visit some of the invasion sites and museums, I'm with the Mrs so although she is happy to visit a few I cannot spend the whole week doing just the WW2 stuff.
Which ones would you recommend?
Pegasus Bridge is pretty iconic... if you want a bit of human interest too look up the story of Cpl Thomas Waters (for example).
http://www.memorial-caen.fr/portailgb/ - essential visit.
Arromanches, Couseulles, etc, all good to see, great beaches.
Bayeux cemetery is very moving, but be sure to look for both a German one and one of the smaller, hidden ones ( like the one here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9ny-sur-Mer_Canadian_War_Cemetery )
le chaos. Longes Sur Mer, best at sunset after visiting Bayeux etc. Beautiful views over the sea, Basically its a row of gun emplacements with the guns still in situ, great for climbing on etc/ exploring etc. very atmospheric place.
The Point du Choc on the coast. There you see the remains of a german pill box and the cratered ground around it.
I read the other week that 5% of all the sand on the invasion beaches is actually eroded munitions debris.
Merville battery, very good.
Pegasus Bridge and if you go there the war cemetery beside the church in Ranville is worth visiting. German and Allied graves in the same cemetery - hadn't seen that before. My daughter spent ages trying to find the grave of the airborne dog handler Emil Corteil and his dog Glen. The gravestone inscription by the family of a Northern Irish soldier lamenting the fact that they would never see his grave was especially poignant (and a reminder of how the world has changed).
Merville Battery. The sound and light show recreating the assault from the perspective of the German soldiers inside the battery is worth doing.
Pointe du hoc and the American war cemetery at Colleville are both humbling.
Utah beach at 5.00 on a sunny morning is a stunning, placid and emotive place.
The Montormel Memorial is a bit out on a limb but well worth visiting. It has a panoramic window overlooking the fields where Polish troops resorted to hand to hand combat trying to close the Falaise Pocket. Can't comment on the audioguide tour as we were the only visitors and had a personal tour by the curator when we visited years ago. Certainly brought home the brutality of war.
Possibly the most moving sites however are those individual war graves and memorials you happen across by chance, like the RAF aircrew buried in one grave in the village graveyard in Breel this summer or the 6 wooden crosses surrounded by a white picket fence marking the graves of an RAF crew who were lost while dropping supplies to the Maquis in the middle of a forest near Ouroux en Morvan.
all notable mentions above. if you only do one museum, make it the one in bayeux.
For me the most enjoyable experience in normandy was reading the landscape, trying to figure out what had gone on around you. i remember sitting in a cafe in vire which was pretty much my first sight of normandy since leaving the ferry and thinking, 'this looks just like brum'. then it started to dawn on me why that might be.
it's an historians wet dream.