Our first morning, I spent three hours between trains wandering around Paris because it was such a beautiful day. I had a lovely time seeing all the sights, but my body punished me for being over-ambitious and so I spend the whole week with blisters on my feet. Oh well, it all worked out!
We traveled around Caen and Mondeville, saw some beautiful churches, and the Chateau of William the Conqueror. We decided that St. John’s should be called the Leaning Tower of Normandy!
We took the train to Bayeux in the morning and did a taxi-tour service of the D-Day beaches, which worked out really well. It was kind of depressing driving through some of the little towns and hearing our tour guide talk about how all the small businesses and country way of life are dying out.
I’m glad I got to see that again because I understood it better and got a chance to see the new museum at the American Cemetery, which was very informative and well put together. We walked through the cemetery and memorial, drove to see the huge bombed out craters above the cliffs and went to Omaha Beach itself. Seeing such a destroyed area was pretty tough stuff, it made me realize how very blessed I have been in my life.
After our tour of the beaches, we went back to Bayeux itself and visited the Cathedral, which was absolutely gorgeous. It was so filled with beautiful light, which I find much more uplifting than the scary dark old cathedrals. It was also quite huge and impressive for such a small town.
We finally saw the Bayeux Tapestry! It was so awesome to finally see it, after having studied it for years in history, French, psychology (changes in language), and even science (Haley’s Comet!). They had nice audioguides that explained it all panel by panel, a museum, and a video. It is so interesting to me to think of how our sense of history can be so influenced by what artifacts and stories we have. What a great day!
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| Nomandy |
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