Vallée du Mémorial de Caen

The Memorial Valley rolls out its green carpet below the Peace Museum.
Two trees are of particular importance here: the first, planted in 1988, the year the Memorial was inaugurated, by Chaàm Herzog, President of the State of Israel; the second, a gingko biloba, a tree symbolizing the victory of life over death, planted in April 1997 by Tenzin Gyatso, XIVth Dalai Lama.

Between these two dates, the history of the Memorial is also that of its gardens: the American garden, inaugurated in 1994; the Canadian garden, inaugurated in 1995 by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien; and the British garden, whose stele was unveiled in 1996 by the Duke of Kent. Places of remembrance, they commemorate the D-Day Landings and the Battle of Normandy, and constitute an international Peace Park, bearing witness to the commitment of the peoples of the world to an irreversible peace process.

The other areas of the Memorial Valley are botanical and entomological reserves. They showcase the rich biodiversity of Normandy's limestone meadows.