1066 and all that

We arrived in Bayeux in an odd mixture of sunny blue skies and random dark grey rain clouds. Our hostel was fairly central and, once we managed to find some staff, we were shown up to our room which was lavishly decorated in pink and purple, with a large marble topped chest of drawers and a bidet in the corner. It was reached by a little spiral staircase, which on further investigation proved to lead to two doors sealed up with police tape. We didn't ask.

Strolling downtown to find some maps and lunch, we each got a croque monsieur from a dodgy little kebab shop, and then had a dreadful time trying to dispose of them quietly (they were cold in the middle, and had green spots) while the owner kept coming up and peering at them to see if he could spot what was wrong. The Visitor Centre was more productive, and we picked up some useful brochures on what to see in and around town. We spent the afternoon looking about the Cathedral which, like the whole town, is very airy and light and spacious, then ended up dining on takeaway couscous and veges on a bench in the rain by an old water wheel. Back at the hostel we were kept entertained until bedtime by the sounds of the group of English schoolboys who had taken the room next to ours ('Arry! 'Arry! Where's my towel?). We kept to our room and played some cards, nervous that if we ventured out and through the communal bathroom we might come across a towel-deprived small boy.

Saturday is market day in Bayeux, and we made accordingly for Place Saint Patrice to see what we could find. It is a large and well-known market, with lots of fresh produce and livestock, and we were inspired to stock up on supplies for dinner (having discovered that there was a guest kitchen at the hostel, despite earnest assurances to the contrary by the staff). We spent a long time choosing and admiring the fruit and veg. and chirruping to the cages of chickens, ducks, geese and rabbits which were bundled about awaiting gloomy fates. It started raining, so we thought it would be a good day to visit the tapestry. We arrived at the museum in good time to catch the short movie on the history and making of the amazing piece of needlework, then took audio guides and started at the start. We discarded the guides fairly promptly - you would have to speed walk in order to hear each description at the appropriate panel - and instead looked at our own pace, hearing snatches of description from other people's guides anyway. The Bayeux tapestry is 70 metres long, and it runs around two sides of a darkened L shaped room. We were both inspired to sketch different parts, and really admired the stitching, the way limited colours are used to such great effect, and the amazing use of blank space in the designs.

After a hot chocolate to revive ourselves we visited the Musée Baron Gérard, an edifice to which one gains free entry if one has just visited the tapestry museum. We found some nice collections of lace and of engraved copper plates, but it was small and we didn't stay long. Back at the hostel we cooked ourselves a gourmet meal and ate it in company with an Aussie couple who'd just arrived, watching a video of football blunders (in French) on the old TV.

We found a Baptist church to go to on Sunday morning which, though the service was taken in French, was pastored by an American and had a few other English-speakers in the congregation. We'd brought our lunch, so straight after the service we walked to the British Military Cemetery where, after eating, we spent an hour or two walking around looking at the graves and memorials. Further along were the public gardens, where we sat and read until it got too cold and wet to stay out any longer. Our evening was enlivened by meeting a lovely young Christian couple from the US, and playing a game of giant outdoor chess in the hostel courtyard. Robyn checkmated me three times! (The first two times we were both sure it was checkmate but, on closer inspection to see what I could have done to prevent it, found it to be only check. It's very depressing to be checkmated three times in one game).

The bad thing about travelling in Normandy 'footloose and fancy free' is that one has to rely on the bus system. You would think, the D Day beaches being the visitor attraction in the area, that the bus companies would take this into consideration and think that people may want to spend the day seeing these beaches, and possibly run routes every hour or so. But no. Twice a day is what you get, carefully spaced so you can't spend more than four hours our and about without having to resort to a pricey taxi to get back. They don't know what's good for them.

Anyhow.

We took a bus to Colville-sur-Mer, where the Cimetière Américain is located: the only US cemetery in the area. Without having realised beforehand, we were treated to seeing the new Visitor Centre in its newly opened glory - it had been finished in time for the D Day anniversary not two weeks earlier. It is a really well laid out and informative centre, with video footage from the first days of Operation Overlord, timetables mapped out on the walls, personal reminiscences from troops now and then, and fascinating glimpses into the planning that began it all. Coming up out of the building we were facing the beaches and the English Channel, and over 9000 perfectly aligned white marble crosses and stars of David, all aligned to face toward America. It's an awe-inspiring sight, and I could've spent hours walking up and down the rows reading names. Unfortunately we had assumed that there would be a town nearby with lunch and things available, but this proved not to be the case. Being now around three o'clock, we were kinda hungry, so set off to find sustenance. We started down the long drive and toward St Laurent sur Mer, which was a tad farther than we had originally thought. Arriving at four, we quickly scoffed some lunch and then investigated the transport situation. It was going to take us too long to walk back to Colville to catch the return bus, and it seemed none came through St Laurent. We reduced to calling for one of the aforementioned pricey taxis, and whiled away our time waiting for it in the Musée Memorial d'Omaha Beach. A fairly basic museum, we actually found the captioned photographs very interesting, and were happily occupied until we where picked up and whisked back to Bayeux. A home cooked dinner of bacon-wrapped, brie-stuffed chicken served with rice, corn and carrots was very consoling, and we congratulated ourselves on unearthing some previously dormant traits of domesticity, while inspiring the rest of the hostel inhabitants with envy. A good documentary made the evening educational - 'The True Glory' won the Oscar for best doco in 1946, and was particularly moving as one realised that all the footage of the Allied Invasion was real, not a clever reconstruction as we are so used to seeing today.

On Tuesday we decided to venture out to Arromanches. We arrived at lunchtime, and promptly bought ourselves crepes, which we ate sitting on the sea wall, then going down to paddle our feet and watch a small dog try to create a long distance tunnel to New Zealand. Somewhat sandy, we ventured in to the Musée du Débarquement, holding our shoes behind our backs, and trying not to leave a trail. It proved to be a great museum, focusing on the artificial 'Mulberry Harbours' constructed for the purpose of offloading troops and gear until such time as a permanent harbour had been captured. They were an amazing feat of engineering and secrecy, and it was cool to look at the replica models in the museum and then glance out the window to see the actual remains still sitting in the channel. There was another good documentary shown here, about the construction of the harbours. Once we'd finished we made our way up the hill to Arromanches 360, a cinema with 9 screens set in a circle, showing footage from WWII, interspersed with modern fly-over shots of the same locations now, in peacetime. It was a great show, and I just wished we could have seen it again, to capture more of what was shown (as it was in a circle all around you, you had to turn to see what caught your eye, and missed some things that happened behind). As we made out of the theatre and down to catch the bus, we were taken aback by being deluged with a sudden downpour of rain. It came out of no-where, and we were drenched in minutes! A damp bus ride home was followed by a hot dinner (stir fry) and conversation with other hostelers while we dried out.

We had decided to splurge, and take a guided tour of some of the D Day sites. Feeling we would learn more this way, and maybe be taken to some spots we wouldn't otherwise be able to get to, we booked in for a one day Battlebus tour, visiting the main British sites of the first days of the invasion. Battlebus is a British company, and we felt that as we had seen some of the American sites by ourselves, we would appreciate hearing some of the British side of things. It also appealed to us that it was just a shuttle bus, with only 7 of us and the guide. And our guide, Stuart, was great - very knowledgeable and excited to share the history with us. We started off inland, at the first drop site for Canadian and British paratroopers. We learnt about some of their early missions, and how they had to take the beach defences so that the troops arriving by sea could land. It was amazing to see the bunkers and look at marks still left on buildings where there had been gunfire. Stuart told us lots of stories of individual soldiers and their acts of bravery, and we saw some of their graves later in the day at a little cemetery. The one museum we went to on our tour was at the Pegasus Bridge site, the museum actually housing the original bridge. There were some great photos of the troops, and lots of their gear displayed. After looking through the museum we went to look at the new bridge, a replica which stands just meters from where the old one was. We even saw it go up and down a few times, as we walked where the gliders landed carrying the men who took the bridge. A German bunker was next on the schedule, and it was fun to stoop through the tunnels and pop our heads out of the machine gun turrets. It was a huge bunker system, stretching out to fill the entire hill, and must have used tonnes and tonnes of concrete. Our last stop was the Ranville war cemetery, one of the smallest British memorials, where we spent half an hour or so.

Back in Bayeux, we raced to our hostel to collect our cases and then hustled down to the railway station to go to our next destination, St Malo. Unfortunately there were no trains running that far at that time of the evening, or anywhere else we wanted to go, so we went as far as possible, which was Saint-Lô, a French town in the middle of no-where. We didn't know where there was to stay, and were hanging around the station waiting for the English speaking attendant to come, when we were accosted by a Kiwi guy (from Hamilton!) and his French girlfriend, who offered to drop us off at the Formule 1! They were absolutely lovely, and drove us there, and the hotel turned out to be cheaper than lots of the hostels we'd stayed in. It was basic, but all we needed for one night.