POSTED: Monday, Mar. 29, 2010

Normandy trips create lasting memories for travel agents

June is approaching, the time when veterans pay homage to the Allied invasion of France that rang the death knell of Nazism.

Sue and Dave Lillie aren't old enough to have served in World War II, but they're veterans when it comes to visiting Normandy, the coastal landing site of D-Day, June 6, 1944.

That's because they own and run À Paris Travel, a trip-planning and consulting business that focuses on excursions to France. She started the business in 1996, and has traveled to Normandy regularly the past decade.

They've both witnessed the emotions that veterans feel when they see the 10,000 soldiers buried at the American Cemetery, and when they visit Omaha Beach, Utah Beach and other battle sites.

They've also witnessed Normandy residents' handshakes and requests for autographs directed at aging veterans they come across.

"You see the American flag flying in almost every town," Sue Lillie said. "Normandy very much remembers what the Allies did."

The Lillies live in Sudden Valley, but grew up elsewhere. Sue Lillie learned French early, growing up in Montreal, and went on to teach French in high school in Issaquah.

After taking some students and parents on trips to France and Quebec, she decided she could do a better job making arrangements, so she set up a travel business as a side activity. She went into it full-time after she retired from teaching in 1999.

Dave Lillie, who hails from New York, used to work for a French company that repaired landing gear on jets. He knows French, but doesn't speak it as fluently as Sue.

They met while both were flying stateside from Paris, and Sue moved to Virginia to be with Dave. With her grown kids in the Northwest, friends in Ferndale, and a business they could run from anywhere, they decided to move west. It was raining when they checked out Olympia, but was sunny when they visited Bellingham, so they warmed to this area.

Their business arranges itineraries for trips to various parts of France. Clients are accompanied by guides in France, but the Lillies go along three to four times a year. The groups are small, usually six to eight people.

"It's like a little family," Sue Lillie said. "There's tremendous bonding in the families."

Normandy trips range from one to five days. With its villages, farm fields, and country lanes lined by hedgerows, Normandy is a scenic setting, but it's the memories that run deepest.

Veterans who meet for the first time in Normandy recount harrowing war stories they've never told their families back home, Sue Lillie said.

One time, a Vietnam veteran brought a U.S. flag to leave in Normandy, but changed his mind after going there.

"I'm taking the flag back because it's been here," Sue Lillie said he told her.

Last year, at the 65th anniversary of D-Day, a New York City firefighter who had dealt with the destruction of Sept. 11 spontaneously gave a fire department memento to a WW II veteran standing next to him in line. They took turns calling each other a hero.

During the 60th anniversary, an Omaha Beach veteran and his wife met the mayor of Colleville-sur-Mer, a village near Omaha Beach. The mayor escorted them to a room in City Hall with a diorama of the battle at Omaha. The mayor awarded a medal to the husband, as expected.

Then the mayor unexpectedly presented a medal to the wife, who served stateside with the WAVES during the war.

"She just broke down in tears," Dave Lillie said.

MORE INFORMATION

For details about À Paris Travel, call 752-6591 or see aparistravel.com.