Once again we stumbled onto something great. I noticed a new building on the grounds American Cemetery at Colleville sur Mer and upon closer inspection found it to be a new visitor center/museum.
What an amazing place. It opened just 3 weeks before our visit last week. I read somewhere that it cost 30 million to build and honestly as many visitors as that Normandy cemetery gets...it is worth every penny.
I could find nothing wrong with the place. I was literally moved to tears with their display of the upturned weapon with the helmet resting on the butt symbolizing to soldiers of a lost comrade. It was the cleanness of the design, the cold rusty metal walls surrounding it and how your eye was taking up and out of that place...to the blue sky above.
There were no flashy digital war games or imitation booms of artillery....no graphic voices or music to distract you....only the sound of roll call in an echoed hallway.
The whole place was so moving...hard to believe it could compare to the rows of crisply white grave markers just outside it's doors, but it does.
If you ever get the chance to go to Normandy, don't forget to check out the visitor center....and remember to say "Thank you".
1 comment:
I agree with you about the power of the helmet/gun piece. In person it must really pull your eye upward. What is on the floor??
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