Bayeux is the best base for visiting the D-Day landing beaches, which stretch along the Normandy coast starting about 15 km north of town.
Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer are the most visited sites — the cemetery holds 9,387 American graves on a bluff above the beach, and the view from the memorial down to the sand makes the landing's scale and cost immediately comprehensible. Allow two to three hours. Pointe du Hoc, 14 km west, is where US Rangers scaled a 30-metre cliff under fire on 6 June 1944; the German bunkers and shell craters are preserved exactly as the fighting left them.
Arromanches (20 km north) has the remarkable remains of Mulberry Harbour B, the prefabricated harbour that the British towed across the Channel after D-Day to supply their forces. Sections of the concrete caissons still stand in the bay. The D-Day museum in town provides context.
For the British and Canadian beaches — Gold, Juno, and Sword — the towns of Courseulles-sur-Mer and Ouistreham (30–40 km east) each have small museums and accessible beach access.