Tours of Normandy from ParisThe Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer: A Visit from Paris
The Normandy American Cemetery sits on a plateau above Omaha Beach at Colleville-sur-Mer, about 286.2 km from Paris. It is a place of burial and remembrance, run by the American Battle Monuments Commission, and entry is free. This page explains what you will find there, when it opens, the flag-lowering ceremony, how to reach it from Paris by car, train and bus, and how much time the day tours from Paris actually give you at the cemetery. The figures here come from the cemetery's own managing agency and from the published details of the tours compared on this site. If you are still choosing between the landing beaches as a whole, the D-Day beaches guide covers them beach by beach. The tours themselves are compared on Normandy tours from Paris.
Headstones at the Normandy American Cemetery, Colleville-sur-Mer. Photo: Nick-D, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Quick answer Visiting the American Cemetery from Paris
The Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer holds 9,389 American war dead and is open daily from 9:00 to 17:00 with free entry, closed 25 December and 1 January. From Paris it is 286.2 km, roughly 3 h 21 by car with no traffic, so most people reach it on a guided day trip.
Key takeaways
- Entry is free and the site covers 172.5 acres above Omaha Beach. Hours and closures are set out in opening times and entry.
- The Normandy D-Day Beaches Day Trip from Paris with Lunch ends its day at the cemetery with 75 minutes on site.
- Compare time at the cemetery across the day tours in the tour comparison table.
- There is no train station at the cemetery. The options are set out in getting there from Paris.
What the Cemetery Is
A brief description of the site, who lies there, and who looks after it.
The Numbers
The Normandy American Cemetery is an American military cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer in Normandy, on a plateau overlooking Omaha Beach. It covers 172.5 acres. The American Battle Monuments Commission, the United States federal agency that maintains American military cemeteries and memorials abroad, gives the number of burials as 9,389. The Walls of the Missing carry 1,557 names.
Be aware that figures circulate online that do not match the managing agency. Two tour listings on this site give 9,387 graves and "nearly 10,000" graves. That is a conflict, and the agency figure of 9,389 is the one printed here. If you read another number somewhere else, this is likely why.
Who Is Buried There
The burials are American servicemen and women who died in the Second World War, most of them in the D-Day landings of 6 June 1944 and the fighting that followed in Normandy. Graves are marked with white headstones laid out in straight rows across the lawns, with the names, unit, home state and date of death. The Walls of the Missing list 1,557 names of those whose remains were never recovered or identified.
Google's question "what did they do with all the bodies on Normandy beach" has no short published answer in the sources used here. What can be said plainly is that the American war dead of the Normandy campaign who remained in France were gathered into this cemetery, and those who were never found are named on its Walls of the Missing.
Sources: ABMC, Normandy American Cemetery, ABMC, Pointe du Hoc
Opening Hours, Entry and the Flag Ceremony
The practical details that decide when you can be there and what you will see.
Hours and Entry
The cemetery is open daily from 9:00 to 17:00, with admission ending 30 minutes before closing, so arrive by 16:30 at the latest. It closes on 25 December and 1 January. Entry is free, and so is parking. There is no ticket office queue, no fee and no timed slot, which is unusual for a site of this size.
The cemetery does not sell food, and there is no shop of the kind you find at bigger museums. Plan water and any meal around your visit. None of the day tours from Paris include food at the cemetery itself, and the shortest stops leave no time to eat there anyway.
The Flag-Lowering Ceremony
A flag-lowering ceremony takes place one hour before closing, which means 16:00 on a normal day. It is a short, formal moment, and many visitors plan their arrival around it.
Here is the honest catch for a day trip from Paris. Most tours arrive at the cemetery in the middle of the afternoon and leave before 16:00, so they miss the ceremony. The Normandy D-Day Beaches Day Trip from Paris with Lunch schedules its 75 minutes at the cemetery at the end of the day, which brings it closer than the other coach tours, but even 75 minutes does not guarantee you will still be on site at 16:00. If the ceremony matters to you, a private car is the only reliable way to control your own clock. The private Mont-Saint-Michel and D-Day day trip from Paris gives the cemetery a full 1 hour, though its timing on any given day is set by the driver.
Getting There from Paris
By car, by train plus bus, or on a guided day trip. There is no station at the cemetery.
Distances and Drive Times
Paris to the cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer is 286.2 km, about 3 h 21 by car with no traffic, according to a routing engine. Paris to Bayeux is 263.0 km, about 3 h 02. In practice the tour operators budget longer, because summer traffic on the Normandy roads is real and the day runs on a fixed schedule. Coach and minivan listings on this site allow roughly 2.5 to 3 hours each way to the beaches, which is why the D-Day days run 12 to 14 hours door to door.
A routing engine's no-traffic figure and an operator's real-world budget do not agree, and both are printed here so you can see the gap.
Train and Bus Without a Car
There is no train station at the cemetery or anywhere on the coast. The nearest useful railhead is Bayeux, reached from Paris Saint-Lazare by about 14 trains a day, an average of 2 h 58 and a fastest of 2 h 12. From Bayeux, Nomad bus line 120 runs to Colleville-sur-Mer and Grandcamp-Maisy.
The bus is a thin service. It runs only one round trip a day, Monday to Saturday, and only from 20 April to 5 November. Outside that season, or on a Sunday, there is no public transport to the cemetery at all. No public transport reaches Pointe du Hoc either. This is why the honest advice is simple: without a car and without a tour, reaching the Normandy American Cemetery from Paris in one day is a race against one daily bus. The Paris to Normandy by train page sets out the rail options in full, and the 2-day Normandy trip removes the race entirely by staying overnight.
The Les Braves memorial on Omaha Beach. Photo: Jonovision82, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Tours from Paris That Stop at the Cemetery
What each tour includes, what it costs, and how long you actually get at Colleville-sur-Mer.
Time at the Cemetery, Side by Side
The table below compares the tours on this site that include the Normandy American Cemetery, with the time each listing gives at the cemetery and what the price covers. Figures come from the published tour listings. Note what is not in most prices: lunch is only included where stated, museum entries only where stated, and no tour offers hotel pickup.
The token on this page appears once, at the end of this section, and marks the currency of the prices and hours shown here.
| Tour | Price | Duration | Time at cemetery | What the price includes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| D-Day Beaches with Lunch | $142 | 14 hours | 75 min | Utah Beach Museum entry, 2-course lunch with cider |
| Small-Group D-Day Tour | $302 | 12 hours | 45 min | Overlord Museum entry, lunch stop only (food extra) |
| Omaha and Utah Beach with Lunch | $129 | 14 hours | 30 min | Pre-reserved Utah Beach Museum entry, sit-down lunch |
| D-Day Beaches and Arromanches | $193 | 14 hours | 1 hour | Lunch on the lunch option only, no entries stated |
| Private Mont-Saint-Michel and D-Day | $518 | 14.5 hours | 1 hour | Hotel pickup, all site fees, abbey ticket, water |
| 3-Day Normandy, Mont-Saint-Michel and Loire | $952 | 3 days | Not stated | Breakfasts, one 3-course dinner in Caen, lunches extra |
Choosing Between Them
If the cemetery is your priority, two things matter: the length of the stop and the order of the day. The City Wonders D-Day day gives the longest coach stop at 75 minutes and puts the cemetery last, so the visit is not squeezed by a lunch that is still to come. The Omaha and Utah Beach tour is the cheapest with lunch at $129 but allows only 30 minutes, which is enough for a walk among the rows of headstones and the memorial, and not much more. The small-group D-Day tour gives 45 minutes in a group of up to 8, at $302.
The D-Day and Arromanches day at $193 is the only day trip that continues east to Arromanches and Juno Beach after the American sites, and it allows 1 hour at the cemetery. The private Normandy tour, the private day at $518, is the only one with hotel pickup, and it pairs the cemetery with Mont-Saint-Michel. The 3-day Normandy tour spreads Normandy over three days with an overnight in Caen, which is the only listing that lets you visit the cemetery without watching a bus clock, though it does not publish the exact time allotted on site.
On Site and Nearby
What you can and cannot do at the cemetery, and what surrounds it.
The Closed Path to the Beach
The path that once led from the cemetery down to Omaha Beach has been closed to the public since 2016. This surprises people who remember older accounts of walking from the graves straight down to the sand. The beach itself is open and reached from separate public access points nearby, a short drive along the coast.
If your plan depends on walking from the cemetery to Omaha Beach on foot, that plan no longer works, and no tour listing on this site schedules it. See the D-Day beaches guide for how the beach accesses are laid out.
Pointe Du Hoc and the Rest of the American Sector
Most tours pair the cemetery with Pointe du Hoc, 20 minutes to 1 hour on the listings here. Pointe du Hoc is free to enter, with free parking, and its visitor centre is open 9:00-17:00 from 1 April to 30 September. A restoration project runs through mid-2027, so parts of the site may be closed, but public access is being kept open. Ask your operator on the day which areas are affected.
At Utah Beach, the Landing Museum charges €10 for adults. The Overlord Museum appears on the small-group itinerary with entry included. None of these fees apply to the cemetery itself, which stays free. The anniversaries around 6 June each year bring commemorations between roughly 4 and 7 June, with road closures and traffic jams between Caen, Bayeux, Arromanches and the beaches. The cemetery's own ceremony on those days is by invitation only, so a general visit around the anniversary sees a busier, partly restricted site.
Should You Visit the Cemetery on a Day Trip from Paris?
An honest weighing of what a one-day visit gives you and what it cannot.
What we genuinely like
- Entry is free and the site is open daily 9:00-17:00, so it fits any schedule that reaches Colleville-sur-Mer.
- A guided day trip solves the transport problem entirely, since no train reaches the cemetery and the Nomad 120 bus runs one round trip a day at most.
- [The City Wonders D-Day day](/d-day-beaches-tour-from-paris-with-lunch/) allows 75 minutes at the cemetery, the longest stop among the coach tours, and includes lunch at $142.
- The 3-day tour at $952 is the only listing that lets you stay near the coast and visit without watching a bus clock.
The honest downsides
- The day is long: 286.2 km each way and 12 to 14 hours door to door.
- Even 75 minutes is short for 172.5 acres, and most stops are 30 to 45 minutes.
- Nearly every tour arrives too early or leaves too late for the 16:00 flag-lowering ceremony.
- The path from the cemetery to Omaha Beach has been closed since 2016.
Who it's NOT for: Not for anyone who wants to linger for hours, attend the flag ceremony or walk to the beach from the graves, because a Paris day trip cannot deliver those.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is buried in the Normandy American Cemetery?
American war dead of the Second World War, most of them killed in the Normandy landings and campaign from 6 June 1944 onward. The American Battle Monuments Commission records 9,389 burials and 1,557 names on the Walls of the Missing. The D-Day beaches guide explains the landings themselves.
What time is the flag ceremony at the cemetery?
A flag-lowering ceremony is held one hour before closing, so at 16:00 against the daily 9:00-17:00 hours. The Normandy D-Day Beaches Day Trip from Paris with Lunch ends its day at the cemetery with 75 minutes, the closest a coach tour gets to that hour.
Is the Normandy American Cemetery free to enter?
Yes, entry is free and it is open daily from 9:00 to 17:00, with admission ending 30 minutes before closing, closed 25 December and 1 January. Tours charge for the transport and guide, not the cemetery. The Omaha and Utah Beach Tour from Paris with Lunch is the cheapest listing at $129 that stops there.
Who pays for and maintains the cemetery?
The American Battle Monuments Commission, a United States federal agency, maintains it. It charges no admission and no parking fee. If you want to see more of the American sector in one day, the private Mont-Saint-Michel and D-Day day trip from Paris covers it by car with hotel pickup.
How do I get to the cemetery without a car?
Take the train from Paris Saint-Lazare to Bayeux, about 14 trains a day and an average of 2 h 58, then Nomad bus line 120 to Colleville-sur-Mer. The bus runs one round trip a day, Monday to Saturday, from 20 April to 5 November only. The Paris to Normandy by train page has the detail.
How much time do day tours give you at the cemetery?
Between 30 minutes and 75 minutes on the one-day listings, and an unstated slot on the 3-day tour. The full comparison with prices and durations is in the tour table above.
Can you walk from the cemetery down to Omaha Beach?
No. The path from the cemetery to the beach has been closed to the public since 2016. The beach is reached from separate public accesses nearby, laid out in the D-Day beaches guide.