title	Sainte-Mère-Élgise and Saint-Côme-du-Mont, Normandy, France - 3rd June 2026
intro	After a brief stop at Cherbourg Airport, where a group of Rosie the Riveters are preparing for the day ahead, we head over to Sainte Mère Élgise, where we end up parked right next to Camp Geronimo - a recreation encampment featuring all sorts of mostly-US military vehicles, including numerous Sherman tanks. After a look around that, we head into the town proper, where most of the party ends up in the café, whilst Nosher and Clive separately roam around town. As it happens, there's some sort of commemoration ceremony going on and the town is a bit of a circus, with a confusing mixture of real service personnel and re-enactors all mingling around. After that, we head out to Saint-Côme-du-Mont and the D-Day Experience museum, where somewhat improbably we even do the C-47/Dakota simulator, despite having flown across the Channel in the real thing just a couple of days before. Finally, Robert, Paul, David and Nosher are out at the Brasserie Le Commerce restaurant for a nice dinner and some very pleasant Ambrée beer.
imgp9817	A "Rosie the Riveter" group is setting up
imgp9823	Rosies the Riveter in Cherbourg Airport
imgp9836	The Montana ANG Hercules takes off
imgp9852	A 1930's-style staff car of some sort
imgp9853	A line of Willys jeeps by the Airborne Museum
imgp9854	Lots of Sherman tanks in a row
imgp9856	Robert roams around
imgp9863	A Sherman rotary engine on a crane
imgp9864	Some military vehicle owners
imgp9865	Somebody pokes their tank
imgp9870	A four-star general's staff car
imgp9872	Paul walks past some military dudes
imgp9873	An unusually-coloured half-track
imgp9875	People mess around with a giant searchlight
imgp9884	Sherman tanks, each with a different muzzle
imgp9886	Sainte Mère Élgise's famous parachutist
imgp9887	The café bar Au Domino
imgp9892	Inside the church of St. Mary
imgp9893	Impressive 1960s stained glass, with parachutists
imgp9894	Another stained-glass window from 1969
imgp9895	An aisle and side-chapel in St. Mère Église
imgp9896	It's raining in the town
imgp9899	It could almost be the 1940s again
imgp9902	Some dude is dressed up as a Spiv or something
imgp9904	Wrong war: Colonel Kilgore out of Apocalypse Now
imgp9905	A pile of French road signs
imgp9907	The Abbey Road of St. Mère Église
imgp9908	An ivy-covered house called Klondike
imgp9909	A paratrooper on a roof
imgp9912	Re-enactors in the Au Domino café
imgp9917	A sculpture with the dates of French resistance
imgp9920	Active US servicepeople take a salute
imgp9928	Small boys in GI helmets
imgp9933	More military types look on
imgp9939	The 82nd Airborne bizarrely start singing
imgp9944	Various flag bearers
imgp9949	Rows of the 82nd Airborne
imgp9955	The Rosie Riveters have turned up again
imgp9958	82nd Airbone in dress uniforms
imgp9963	The milling throngs in St. Mère Église
imgp9964	Clive watches from the pavement
imgp9966	The 82nd Airbone marches off
imgp9971	The flag bearers hang around
imgp9972	A side-drummer is on the phone
imgp9980	General Lee Marvin meets and greets
imgp9989	The Rosie group poses for a photo
imgp9991	St. Mère Église is a bit of a zoo
imgp9992	The general poses for another photo
imgp0005	There's a very nice staff car back in the car park
imgp0006	A car is hauled away for "camping" in the car park
imgp0008	We actually do a C-47 simulation
imgp0010	The end of the Dakota simulation
imgp0016	A reconstruction of a real-life café
imgp0017	More impressive recreations
imgp0018	A colourised photo of wartime St. Mère Église
imgp0019	The reconstruction is quite lifelike
imgp0020	Paul looks at memorabilia in Dead Man's Corner
imgp0023	The famous Dead Man's Corner
imgp0029	More Willys jeeps parked up by the side of the road
imgp0031	A jeep has a crate of Coca-Cola bottles on the front
imgp0032	We get held up by a tipped-over HGV
imgp0034	The Essex "Last of the Summer Wine" in La Commerce