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Sword Beach at
Luc-sur-Mer on France’s Côte-de-Nacre
Colleville Beach at
the town of Luc-sur-Mer is located
at the point where the beaches codenamed Sword and Juno meet.
The beach has a
shallow incline and at low tide, as shown
in the sunset picture above, and there’s a rather broad
expanse of it going out to sea. The D-Day invasion of Normandy by
British 
and Canadian forces which occurred here did not meet the same brutal
resistance as at Gold Beach, owing to the fact that they came
ashore as the tide was rising and there was relatively little beach
exposure.
Today Luc-sur-Mer is
an
architecturally unremarkable but otherwise pleasant beach town with
modestly-priced hotels facing the sea. There is
a Thalassotherapy (seawater) spa, a casino,
trails for hiking and
biking, shellfish gathering at low tide and more — certainly
the town offers a wide range of activity preferences. The beach itself
is sand rather than
stones as one finds down the coast at Dieppe,
Ètretat
and Le
Tréport. Tthis fact alone makes Luc more
attractive to those who are more
drawn to inactivity, for instance just lying on the beach with a good
book.
The shallow incline of the broad beach at low tide is something to be
mindful of,
since the incoming tide can take a surprisingly short time to reach the
seawall as shown below.
To the southeast of
Luc-sur-Mer is the port
city of Ouistreham, which offers ferry service to Portsmouth,
England.
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Sword
Beach
Luc-sur-Mer
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The sun rises over Sword Beach’s west end, at the commune of
Luc-sur-Mer, Normandy Coast, France.