Normandy - Day 1

Thursday, August 12, 2010 Day 43
We woke early this morning, breakfasted, finished packing our smallest rolling carry-on and the backpack and set out for the subway and thence Gare St. Lazare where we boarded a train for Bayeux. The journey took just under two hours and gave us a lovely view of rural France, with rolling hillsides, fields of huge round and square hay bales, corn and cattle. Outside of Caen, we glimpsed a couple of dozen modern windmills, stark against the sky with their three slow-turning blades.

We checked into our hotel, the Churchill, and left to find lunch. We ate at a creperie, where I had some wonderful crepe of chicken and mushrooms in a cream sauce and Roger had a ham and potato crepe. We finished by sharing a salted caramel crepe. Delicious! From there, we went to see the famous Bayeau Tapestry. This is an incredible 60-meter long piece of fabric embroidered in the first five years after the Battle of Hastings. The term “tapestry” is a misnomer for this piece of stitchery, as it is embroidery on fabric rather than the actual weaving of a fabric. It tells the tale in wool on linen of the events leading up to the battle, and of the battle itself, and the crowning as King of England of William the Bastard, who, as the victor, reinvented himself as William the Conqueror. It is truly amazing – beautiful stitchery, consistent depictions of the characters, remarkable planning and execution all the way around. Almost nothing is known about the design and implementation of the work, although it is believed to have been commissioned by Bishop Otto, half-brother to William.

From the Bayeux Tapestry we walked to the Memorial Museum of the Battle of Normandy for some background on the D-Day invasion of Normandy. I pooped out less than halfway though, suffering from a bad case of museum legs. It’s too bad, because I was the one who elected to go through the museum – my background in the history of D-Day is woefully inadequate. Roger would not have gone to the museum if I had not elected to do so, but I think he enjoyed it nevertheless.

From there we walked to a nearby cemetery which contains the remains of some 4,700 mostly British and Canadian soldiers as well as a couple of hundred German soldiers. We also viewed an ongoing memorial to journalists everywhere killed during war. There are steles containing the names of all journalists killed. This was particularly moving as it contained names as late as 2008, and I am sure that, somewhere in Normandy, a stonemason is preparing a stele containing the names of those killed in 2009.

From here we returned to the hotel and rested for a bit, then went out to find supper. We tried three restaurants and were turned away because we had no reservation. We finally found a place to eat and stayed until almost 10:00. Then to our hotel and to bed. We were distressed to discover that our electric toothbrush had been running the entire trip until its battery died, and we failed to bring the charger, thinking that we would only use it twice apiece and it would have sufficient charge for those four uses. Sigh.