Normandy D-Day in 2 days, on foot

This 2-day self-guided walking plan for Normandy D-Day covers 13 narrated sights in an easy day-by-day order. Each day is split into a morning and an afternoon loop, and every stop has a two to three minute audio story in the Gingerguide app.

You set the pace: this is a suggested order, not a schedule. Walk it in 2 days, or stretch it out. Reorder freely; Normandy D-Day rewards a detour.

The Normandy D-Day route at a glance

Day 1

Day 1 covers 7 stops over about 52 km as the crow flies, from Bayeux War Cemetery to Juno Beach Centre. ≈ 52 km between stops, straight line

Morning

1. Bayeux War Cemetery: The Commonwealth War Graves Commission's largest Second World War cemetery in France, with about 4,648 burials of many nationalities. The Bayeux Memorial opposite names 1,808 servicemen with no known grave. 0.8 km to the next stop
2. Bayeux Cathedral: A Norman-Romanesque and Gothic cathedral consecrated in 1077, the original home of the Bayeux Tapestry. Spared wartime bombing, it still crowns the heart of the medieval old town. 0.2 km to the next stop
3. Bayeux Old Town: Liberated on 7 June 1944, the first sizeable French town freed, and left almost undamaged. Half-timbered houses, the river Aure and a watermill fill its medieval centre. 0.3 km to the next stop
4. Bayeux Tapestry: A roughly 70-metre wool embroidery of the 1066 Norman Conquest. As of September 2026 the Bayeux museum is closed for renovation and the cloth is on loan in London until 2027. 25 km to the next stop

Afternoon

1. Mémorial de Caen: A major museum of the Second World War, D-Day, the Battle of Normandy and the Cold War, built above a former German command bunker and presented as a museum for peace. 9.4 km to the next stop
2. Pegasus Bridge: A canal bridge at Bénouville seized in a British glider assault in the first minutes of 6 June 1944. The original span is preserved at the Memorial Pegasus museum. 17 km to the next stop
3. Juno Beach Centre: Canada's Second World War museum, at Courseulles-sur-Mer behind Juno Beach, where the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division landed on 6 June 1944. Its building is shaped like a stylised maple leaf.

Day 2

Day 2 covers 6 stops over about 52 km as the crow flies, from Arromanches and the Mulberry Harbour to Sainte-Mère-Église. ≈ 52 km between stops, straight line

Morning

1. Arromanches and the Mulberry Harbour: The Gold Beach town where 'Mulberry B', a prefabricated harbour towed from Britain in 1944, supplied the invasion; concrete caisson remains still stand offshore, best seen at low tide. 17 km to the next stop
2. Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial: On a bluff above Omaha Beach at Colleville-sur-Mer, the American cemetery holds war dead of the Normandy campaign beneath rows of white marble markers, with a memorial and reflecting pool. 1.7 km to the next stop
3. Omaha Beach: The largest of the five D-Day beaches and the costliest for American forces on 6 June 1944; today an open beach marked by memorials and the 'Les Braves' sculpture. 8.9 km to the next stop

Afternoon

1. Pointe du Hoc: A cliff-top promontory between Utah and Omaha beaches, held as a German artillery position and assaulted by U.S. Army Rangers on 6 June 1944; the cratered ground remains. 14 km to the next stop
2. Utah Beach: The westernmost D-Day beach, on the Cotentin coast near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, where the U.S. 4th Infantry Division landed on 6 June 1944; a landing museum stands at La Madeleine. 10 km to the next stop
3. Sainte-Mère-Église: A Cotentin market town behind Utah Beach, widely described as among the first liberated on 6 June 1944, where a paratrooper effigy still hangs from the church steeple.

Distances are straight-line between stops; streets add a little.

Updated: September 28, 2026

Full Normandy D-Day guide and all stops →