Early this morning we arrived in St Malo, a seaside town in Brittany surrounded by 17th century ramparts. Tomorrow we’ll day trip to the famed Mont St Michel, but today we explored the fortifications of the city, walking up along the wall. When I was on the Omaha tour yesterday, I was with a father and son who were a bit bothered by the beach goers at Omaha. We discussed it for a while and I argued that the French can hardly be expected to live in constant memorial of those events, after all, what were those soldiers fighting for if not for the kinds of experiences people have at the beach with friends or family? In St Malo today, looking at the fortifications that date back as early as the 12th century, I also wondered how much we Americans can understand a history full of invasions and liberations. Although Bayeux was spared, 80% of St Malo and considerable sections of Rouen were destroyed during WWII. The process of restoring, rather than rebuilding is amazing.
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