Yesterday i went to Caen with Dominique, Hervé, Pierre-Yves, Moïseanne, and Patric (Mo's godfather). We spent most of the day at the Caen Memorial, a museum that covers political history from 1918 to the present day with a focus on World War II. It's an excellent museum with an amazing array of artifacts; you could easily spend a day and a half to two days in there if you read everything they have available.
I was surprised that it didn't confine itself to the war years, since that was what i had
expected. The Cold War was thoroughly covered with exhibits on propaganda, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and atomic/nuclear testing. One room played an endless loop of those ridiculous 1950s propaganda films that told school children to "duck and cover" or told army personnel that witnessing an atomic blast and exposing oneself to the ensuing radiation was nothing to worry about.
The memorial also includes an exhibit on world peace and currently a temporary exhibit about energy conservation. They have four pieces of the World Trade Center as part of the peace exhibit.
We also spent a little time in the gardens, where Pierre-Yves chased some ducks. At about 4:00, we left the memorial to head to one of the D-Day beaches (Jour-J en Français). Patric's GPS took us 
through every tiny village between Caen and the Channel, but we eventually stopped just up the beach from the Juno Beach Centre. It was a very hazy day, and the tide was out, way out. The kids went all the way out to the water, but the rest of us stayed at various stages further inland (Hervé and Patric barely set foot on the beach, while i walked out part of the way, and Dominique went a little further than me).
After stopping at the home of one of Dominique's friends near Courseulles sur Mer, and stopping at a Pizzeria in Pont L'Eveque for dinner, i finally got home at about 11:30. A long day :)
You can see pictures of the Caen Memorial here: 
and pictures of the beach here: 
