Published in: Helsingin Sanomat, 18th of July, 2004

- THE TOURISTS WHICH ARE NOW OCCUPYING THE BEACHES OF NORMANDY ARE SEARCHING FOR REAL EXPERIENCES, BUT ALSO FOR THE BEACHES WHERE PRIVATE RYAN AND TOM HANKS FOUGHT.

- THE WAR TOURISM IS DOING WELL. NEW WARS ARE BEING FOUGHT CONSTANTLY AND THE REMAINS FROM THE LAST ONES ARE BEING LOOKED AFTER CAREFULLY

- Behind the corner of a red brick house comes a barrel of a tank and finally the entire tank appears. It's on stand, between two cafe's. There is small flags, banners, poppy wreaths, post card stands, cars and motorbikes everywhere. The coffee cups are making noise and video cameras are in each hand. The tank is covered with people who know a lot about the tank. It's a British Centaur, used in the Second World War. These tourists are not seeking a idyllic village from Normandy, long beaches and cheap wine. They are searching the remains from the Second World War. The must to see target in Bénoville is the Pegasus Bridge that the Allies captured sixty years ago few hours before the actual landings to the beaches of Normandy began. The full years which are celebrated as a memory of Normandy landings, gather a lot of people to Normandy. They are called war tourists. The D-Day season this year goes on officially for 80 days, but parades, concerts and plays are held till Christmas. The 207 Normandy villages, communes and cities have gathered together the sights from the war. There's plenty to see, one village generally speaking contains three sights from the war and from the Normandy landings.

- Bénouville offers an excellent starting point for the journey as this is the place where it all started. The landings to the Normandy beaches started on the morning of 6th of June 1944. The first British soldiers however had landed already sixteen minutes past the midnight to Bénouville. The troops landed with quiet gliders to the fields along the channel and quickly captured the bridges that allowed passage to East and to North-East. The most important bridge in Bénouville was the bridge that received a code name Pegasus Bridge. The original bridge is in the museum, but the red brick buildings which stood there in 1944, still remains. There's a sign in the wall, that tells that the building was the first one that the Allies liberated. A same family is still keeping a cafe in the building. The walls inside the cafe are covered with pictures where the Allied soldiers are posing for the camera. The cafe has been visited by politicians, movie stars and even royals. You cannot take pictures inside the cafe, but the coffee is good, when you finally get one cup after an long queue. Even the town hall walls contain a sign, that reminds people, that this was the first town hall to be liberated. Of course the village contains a museum. The modern building which was build four years ago near to the Pegasus Bridge, is like a giant wing drop from the sky from some big bird. The museum is very needed here as the scale of the biggest military operation in the history of the world is so huge, that it's hard to realize it without some help. During a one single night, several hundred thousand troops arrived from the sea and from the air. The soldiers brought with them everything they needed: guns, vehicles, bridges, harbors and even a breakwaters.

- Each detail was carefully planned. The parachutists had a three condoms and a metal clicker in their pockets. The condoms were used to protect the guns from the water and the clickers enabled soldiers who were wandering in the darkness, to recognize each others and to tell where they were. The person who is selling tickets reminds us, that there's a discount to twenty-three other museums if you keep the ticket with you the whole time. To ten other museums you have to buy another full priced ticket. To one of the museums you would even have to buy a plane ticket: The National D-Day Museum was opened in New Orleans in USA in the year of 2000, sixth of June of course. There has been over a million visitors and the museum is planning to triple it's space. The war tourism is doing fine and no wonder actually as the previous wars are not going anywhere from the history and new wars are being fought constantly. In Normandy the D-Day tourism is an important income to the people, along with the farming, fishing and industry. For example in Belgium the remains from the First World War are supporting economically a whole villages. For example in the battlefield of Flanders near Ypres, some 70 000 people visit every year. A new museum that handles the First World War was opened there some six years ago. The same war is handled in the experience, science and researcher  center in French town of Péron, which was opened twelve years ago. In Britain there's six travel agencies which are solely focused on arranging trips for war tourists. The travel agency is arranging trips to the battlefields of Europe but also to North-Africa, to the former Burma, Singapore and to Falkland Islands.

- The American tourists are most interested about the Pacific Islands and Vietnam, a war which ended 30 years ago. Each full year to the ending of Vietnam war, rises the amount of tourists visiting the places. When the amount of tourists rises, the places starts to be worn out and the need to modify the places comes a top priority for the local people. For example the tunnels which were used by the Vietkong, were expanded so that the Western tourists could fit into the tunnels. All of the places haven't even really existed. The tourists for example want to visit the China Beach in Vietnam which is famous from TV-series which told a tale of the American military hospital. In reality the soldiers visited the My Kehn beach outside of the city of Danang. The Bridge on the River Kwai isn't even a real one. The original bridge was destroyed in the war and the bridge that now stands on the Kwai river, is a new one and build to a complete different spot than the original one. The war tourism started during the First World War. The eager tourists wanted to see the trenches with their own eyes and appeared behind the front lines, immediately after the battle had come to a stalemate and turned into a trench warfare. The pilgrim started immediately after the peace was declared. The relatives of those who had died in the war came searching for their loved ones graves and these middle class tourists respected the battlefields even to a point of some sort of a religious habit. After them the Western Front was starting to become populated by the veterans and amateur historians who wanted and still want to visit the battlefields and see it with their own eyes and inspect the landscape themselves, while figuring out how the battle was evolving and try to realize how devastating and huge the first technological war had been. When the war had been fought with the outdated tactics of the generals and with new weapons like gas, tanks and machine guns, the outcome was horrible and utter slaughter. In the newspaper columns there was a heated debate was it appropriate to visit the battlefields. Especially outraged people were from those tourists who dared to sit down after their tour and start eating from the picnic basket in the middle of a field, where blood had been spilled for the country. No one isn't shy about eating in Normandy and visiting military leftovers. Of course the tourists need food. In the terraces of Ouistreham people are ordering bear and shells and thinking if they should visit the museum, which is inside a German bunker. Perhaps not today. There's plenty of chances to visit the Atlantic Wall in elsewhere as Hitler build the defensive line from Northern-Norway to the Bay of Biscay at the height of his power, the whole Atlantic Wall contained some 14 000 bunkers. More bear! Ouistreham is the Tallinn for the British. The ships from Portsmouth are bringing British spirits tourists to France just to spend their weekend there. In some of the shops, there is only alcohol and tobacco on the shelves. Sixty years ago the town was the most eastern point in the invasion. The beach which goes on 80 kilometers to west from Ouistreham was divided into a four sections. Sword for the British, Juno for the Canadians, Gold for the British and Omaha and Utah for the Americans. The people in Normandy are flying the flags of every nation that fought in the battle, also the nations which had a fewer troops along with the amphibious fleet gets their fare share of the glory: Polish, Norwegian, Belgians, Australians and Greeks have their flag in the pole and a ceremony for them. The beach is full of summer houses, restaurants and museums. The memorials are made with the same mold, the essential information has been written with a raised letters to a brown-gray stone. The roads which lead to inland are named after the Allied Generals and other important Allied persons. There's pieces from the Atlantic Wall behind every corner, concrete bunkers and curious people looking at them.

- The coast of Normandy was a popular place for the British and French already in the late 19th century. The first war tourists arrived in the late 1950's. First they were the veterans of the landings which came back to the familiar place with their comrades, then they brought their wife's and later they arrived with their whole family. During the years the number of visitors has increased and the visitors gotten much younger, movies generate a new history. The movie of Steven Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan invited a lot of new visitors to Normandy, who wanted to see the places where Tom Hanks fought. There's no girl groups in the beaches of Normandy, no old women friends traveling together and no parties during the night in the local disco, where people are comparing the tanning. The restaurants are filled from Americans and British people and from a lot of talk. There's always the "what if". What if the landing would have failed? Would Hitler been able to maintain the rule over Western-Europe. Or perhaps the Red Army would have driven through Berlin and ended to the Channel and most of the Europe would have remained behind a iron curtain. Effective war tourists moves by his own car. The travel officials have marked eight different paths to Normandy and following those, one can also find the places, where action happened after the D-Day. There's seven bus companies in Bayeux which are offering their service to those ones that arrived without their own car. The battle busses which leave from the tourists office, have a bathroom, air-conditioning and drivers that can speak two different languages. The whole day trip costs 73 euros. Person who is not willing to sit in a bus the whole day, will be satisfied with a trip that lasts three and a half hours and covers three different zones, this trip costs 45 euros. The tour of course includes the American cemetery in Normandy, just one out from the total of 37. To the cruelty of war belongs the fact that the Allied scouts had already marked the fields, which could be used as a temporary cemeteries. The official cemeteries were build after the war. The cemetery of Colleville-sur-Mer was opened in 1956 and in the lawn which is in a hysterical perfect condition, one can see a 9 386 simple white marble crosses. In the background is the sea, many of the crosses have been decorated with flowers. It's hard to take a picture, so that the picture would not contain a single person. This is the most popular place of the invasion tourists. Last year there was 1,5 million visitors at the cemetery and during the most busiest days 10 000 people visited the place. There's an info booth which helps people to find the correct graves and they also sell flowers and poppies made out of silk. The info booth is also serving those who cannot come to the cemetery itself as through the internet one can order flowers to the chosen grave with 35 dollars and can receive a picture from the grave too. 

- Behind the cemetery starts the beach, where the Allied soldiers received the most nastiest welcome: Over 2 400 soldiers died on Omaha Beach during the first day. The beach isn't very friendly even now. The visitors are gone, wind is blowing from the sea and the staff of the only hotel is watching TV and being nasty to the tourists. There's no point trying to get a tip from the war tourists. They only stay at the place for one night and heads for some other location. Even when the tourists bring money, not everyone are happy to them. For example the people living in the village of Sainte-Mére-Église are starting to become very tired to the amount of visitors, which is increasing constantly. During the last three years, the amount of visitor has tripled and during this year they are expecting some 50 000 visitors, which is a huge number in a village, where there is only few thousand people living in. The parking lots are full of foreign cars, the traveling agency has had to hire more people to work there and there is constantly coming more souvenir shops. There's already six of them, all selling the same things: stickers, cards, records, books, maps, videos, hats, you name it. The traditional products from the area has been wrapped into a D-Day papers and the D-Day wine is decorated with soldiers, helmets in their heads. As there is no more real souvenirs found from the beaches and from the fields, the shops are selling scale models, assembly kits and army surplus brought from elsewhere. The D-Day however is celebrated in the village with enthusiasm and for a reason too as the village was the first one that the Allies liberated. The start however was very dramatic. The villagers were woken during the night of 6th of June as the Americans and Germans where firing each others violently. John Steel was one of the parachutists that landed to the village, but he was stuck to the church tower from his parachute. The Germans were firing at him, but he survived as he played dead for so long, that the Germans were forced out from the village and other soldiers were able to rescue him. From that day onwards, the villagers have placed a real sized dummy hanging from his parachute to the church tower. This event brings even more tourists and the villagers are as anxious as the people in Pamplona during the famous "bull run". Their own celebration is turning into a too huge event and the result is a lot of dirt and traffic.

- Traveling is about offering experiences and industry is suppose to top every year it's previous profit. The signs and memorials aren't enough anymore to the demanding war tourists, so that they would come back during the next year too. There has to be always something new for the anniversaries. The original landscape will remain, but the tourists wants fast experiences, audio-visual presentations and a museum shop. The Le Memorial which is located in Caen has become the first experience and information factory. The museum that is concentrated to the First World War doesn't want a visitor who is just looking quickly the displays. The effective persons who are selling the tickets are selling two different packages: A ticket to the museum and a hot meal or a ticket and a three dishes. The concept is working as in the year 2002 there was over a half a million visitors and during this year the amount will be doubled. The quality of the experiences is guaranteed by the ISO 9002 quality certificate which has been granted to the museum. And the quality is guaranteed really, your ears will be ringing from the artillery fire, long after you've left from the museum.