Bayeux
This travelogue started here. To save everyone's feeds, the details are behind the cut.
Our tourist day in Bayeux started with a wonderful breakfast of pain au chocolat, coffee, bread, cheese, juice, butter, Nutella and probably other stuff I am forgetting. I think everyone staying there was from an English speaking country. I remember people from Australia, New Zealand and Singapore (as well as us from the US of course), and there may have been others I don't recall. The conversation was interesting as everyone talked about what they had already done and what they had planned for the day. What a great way to start our first full day of being tourists.
After breakfast I spent some time trying to figure out how to get our new phone SIM card to work. The original card that came with the phone came with information about what the phone number was. This new card did not. And all of the instructions for the new card were only in French. After spending some time with Google Translate, I determined that I had to just insert the card and start using it. The only way I could figure out to get the number was to call Deb's phone, and have here tell me what it was. Not ideal, but at least we had a working cell phone so we could get in touch with folks (and they with us).
We started out waling the few blocks to the tapestry museum. We went ahead and bought the 3 museum pass, since our landlady said the museum in the Bishop's Palace was newly re-opened after a massive upgrade. This is a museum that Rick Steeves specifically said to give a miss, but she said it was quite good after having been "Mickey Mouse" (her words) before.
My words cannot adequately describe the tapestry. Just starting with the basic linen background it was all embroidered on. It was incredibly fine, and so even as to be amazing. Granted, I am not a fiber artist, so I may be impressed by stuff that is actually simple to do, but wow. And the attention to detail. Discussions of garb choices, weapon styles, hair styles, shield strapping, huscarl sightings, etc. were all heard. Well, heard amongst the four of us anyway. Other groups went past at the pace set my the audio tour. We spent more time paused and rewinding to listen to something again than others did in the whole tapestry gallery.
Even the gallery itself was a work of both art and science. All the care and effort that went in to creating a space that would both protect and display the tapestry was phenomenal. And they have done a great job. My only complaint is that all the benches are too far away to see any real details. Oh sure, having them closer would mean the people not pausing their audio tour would have to go around them all, but who cares about them? I need to spend some time up really close to figure out how that shield is strapped or how that repair to the tapestry was made, and my feet are tired!
In addition to the tapestry itself, there is a good exhibit about life in Normandy at the time the tapestry was made (even though some scholars think it was made in England). Lots of interesting dioramas and recreations of artifacts (including a boat). There was a good amount of information about what had happened to the tapestry over the years as well.
Since our B&B was so close, we stopped by there to drop off our booty (from the gift shop, not the exhibits). It was really nice to not have to carry all that stuff around with us all day.
Our discussions at breakfast had reinforced our reading that the D-Day museum in Bayeux was worth a visit, so we headed there next. It was only about a 20 minute walk away, but we foolishly didn't stop anywhere to have lunch. We did stop at another restaurant recommended by our landlady to make dinner reservations. (And we were very glad we did, but more about that later.)
The D-Day museum was well worth it. There was a great timeline of the invasion, highlighting the contributions of each of the allies involved. I was interested to see how matter-of-factly the German side of the story was told without any demonizing (that I could tell, anyway). There was a film about the invasion and all the logistics involved. I had no idea that over 1 million men (and all of their supplies) came over those beaches in the first week. Just wow.
After that museum it was passed the regular lunch hours, but we were starving. We ended up eating in a little cafe that was attached to a hotel near the cathedral, so it served food all afternoon. We all had versions of the buck wheat crepes (called galettes) with ham or cheese or sausage or salmon. Then we had to split a banana and chocolate and whipped cream and ice cream filled crepe for dessert. Mostly because none of us could have eaten it by ourselves.
While the ladies went on to the museum, Wayne and I went to the post office (which was right next door to where we thought the museum was) to get stamps for the postcards we had already bought. This was the only place where I ran in to someone who spoke no English. Luckily enough I had a postcard with me that I could use as a prop, and enough French to tell her how many stamps I wanted. The only stumbling point was when she asked me where I wanted to send them to. I didn't understand enough of her question to even guess at what she was asking. But when she started listing countries, I recognized the French phrase for the UK and guessed what she was looking for. Another international incident avoided. When Wayne was buying his stamps, he ran through 3 or four different languages trying to remember how to say "2" in French. Rather frustrating for him, but I found it amusing.
The rest of the late afternoon was spent in the museum in the Bishop's Palace. Well, after we could find it. It was not inside the door with the big sign out front, but through that building, down the street and around a corner. Kind of confusing for me to find, but we got there eventually. It gave a very nice history of the area around Bayeux from neolithic times to the 20th century. Of course we were particularly interested in the Roman through Renaissance periods. It was also cool that they left exposed various parts or the palace's foundation throughout the museum.
We stopped in at the cathedral on our way back to the B&B. While not exactly sunny, it wasn't as overcast and rainy as the day before, so the interior was much less gloomy. It is not as an imposing structure as Notre Dame in Paris or the cathedral in Chartres, but it had plenty of cool features, including big buttresses (which I like, I cannot lie).
After another stop at the B&B to drop off loot and take a quick rest, we headed back to the restaurant where we had dinner reservations (again at the suggestion of our landlady) called Le Rapiere which does in fact mean "The Rapier". We were glad we had made the reservation, as they were totally booked on this Tuesday evening (with lots of Americans by the accents). We saw them turn away several parties at the door, so lots of people wanted to eat there.
As with the night before, Wayne and I had full menus while the ladies had just a main course (and helped us share). There was a potato soup, thai prawns, warm camembert, beef fillet, sea bass, veal, sorbet, an assortment of local cheeses, cheesecake and a banana creme tort thing. This was a much fancier place and along with a bottle of wine we spent a little over 80 E per couple. But well worth it for almost 3 hours of entertainment.
As you will notice throughout this travelogue, I'm kind of fixated on food. It was fabulous during our entire trip. It may even inspire us to do more cooking ourselves, but only since there aren't any good French cafes near us. And finding a good baguette is next to impossible, despite the claims of Panera.
We stumbled back to the B&B and bed.
The saga continues here.
Our tourist day in Bayeux started with a wonderful breakfast of pain au chocolat, coffee, bread, cheese, juice, butter, Nutella and probably other stuff I am forgetting. I think everyone staying there was from an English speaking country. I remember people from Australia, New Zealand and Singapore (as well as us from the US of course), and there may have been others I don't recall. The conversation was interesting as everyone talked about what they had already done and what they had planned for the day. What a great way to start our first full day of being tourists.
After breakfast I spent some time trying to figure out how to get our new phone SIM card to work. The original card that came with the phone came with information about what the phone number was. This new card did not. And all of the instructions for the new card were only in French. After spending some time with Google Translate, I determined that I had to just insert the card and start using it. The only way I could figure out to get the number was to call Deb's phone, and have here tell me what it was. Not ideal, but at least we had a working cell phone so we could get in touch with folks (and they with us).
We started out waling the few blocks to the tapestry museum. We went ahead and bought the 3 museum pass, since our landlady said the museum in the Bishop's Palace was newly re-opened after a massive upgrade. This is a museum that Rick Steeves specifically said to give a miss, but she said it was quite good after having been "Mickey Mouse" (her words) before.
My words cannot adequately describe the tapestry. Just starting with the basic linen background it was all embroidered on. It was incredibly fine, and so even as to be amazing. Granted, I am not a fiber artist, so I may be impressed by stuff that is actually simple to do, but wow. And the attention to detail. Discussions of garb choices, weapon styles, hair styles, shield strapping, huscarl sightings, etc. were all heard. Well, heard amongst the four of us anyway. Other groups went past at the pace set my the audio tour. We spent more time paused and rewinding to listen to something again than others did in the whole tapestry gallery.
Even the gallery itself was a work of both art and science. All the care and effort that went in to creating a space that would both protect and display the tapestry was phenomenal. And they have done a great job. My only complaint is that all the benches are too far away to see any real details. Oh sure, having them closer would mean the people not pausing their audio tour would have to go around them all, but who cares about them? I need to spend some time up really close to figure out how that shield is strapped or how that repair to the tapestry was made, and my feet are tired!
In addition to the tapestry itself, there is a good exhibit about life in Normandy at the time the tapestry was made (even though some scholars think it was made in England). Lots of interesting dioramas and recreations of artifacts (including a boat). There was a good amount of information about what had happened to the tapestry over the years as well.
Since our B&B was so close, we stopped by there to drop off our booty (from the gift shop, not the exhibits). It was really nice to not have to carry all that stuff around with us all day.
Our discussions at breakfast had reinforced our reading that the D-Day museum in Bayeux was worth a visit, so we headed there next. It was only about a 20 minute walk away, but we foolishly didn't stop anywhere to have lunch. We did stop at another restaurant recommended by our landlady to make dinner reservations. (And we were very glad we did, but more about that later.)
The D-Day museum was well worth it. There was a great timeline of the invasion, highlighting the contributions of each of the allies involved. I was interested to see how matter-of-factly the German side of the story was told without any demonizing (that I could tell, anyway). There was a film about the invasion and all the logistics involved. I had no idea that over 1 million men (and all of their supplies) came over those beaches in the first week. Just wow.
After that museum it was passed the regular lunch hours, but we were starving. We ended up eating in a little cafe that was attached to a hotel near the cathedral, so it served food all afternoon. We all had versions of the buck wheat crepes (called galettes) with ham or cheese or sausage or salmon. Then we had to split a banana and chocolate and whipped cream and ice cream filled crepe for dessert. Mostly because none of us could have eaten it by ourselves.
While the ladies went on to the museum, Wayne and I went to the post office (which was right next door to where we thought the museum was) to get stamps for the postcards we had already bought. This was the only place where I ran in to someone who spoke no English. Luckily enough I had a postcard with me that I could use as a prop, and enough French to tell her how many stamps I wanted. The only stumbling point was when she asked me where I wanted to send them to. I didn't understand enough of her question to even guess at what she was asking. But when she started listing countries, I recognized the French phrase for the UK and guessed what she was looking for. Another international incident avoided. When Wayne was buying his stamps, he ran through 3 or four different languages trying to remember how to say "2" in French. Rather frustrating for him, but I found it amusing.
The rest of the late afternoon was spent in the museum in the Bishop's Palace. Well, after we could find it. It was not inside the door with the big sign out front, but through that building, down the street and around a corner. Kind of confusing for me to find, but we got there eventually. It gave a very nice history of the area around Bayeux from neolithic times to the 20th century. Of course we were particularly interested in the Roman through Renaissance periods. It was also cool that they left exposed various parts or the palace's foundation throughout the museum.
We stopped in at the cathedral on our way back to the B&B. While not exactly sunny, it wasn't as overcast and rainy as the day before, so the interior was much less gloomy. It is not as an imposing structure as Notre Dame in Paris or the cathedral in Chartres, but it had plenty of cool features, including big buttresses (which I like, I cannot lie).
After another stop at the B&B to drop off loot and take a quick rest, we headed back to the restaurant where we had dinner reservations (again at the suggestion of our landlady) called Le Rapiere which does in fact mean "The Rapier". We were glad we had made the reservation, as they were totally booked on this Tuesday evening (with lots of Americans by the accents). We saw them turn away several parties at the door, so lots of people wanted to eat there.
As with the night before, Wayne and I had full menus while the ladies had just a main course (and helped us share). There was a potato soup, thai prawns, warm camembert, beef fillet, sea bass, veal, sorbet, an assortment of local cheeses, cheesecake and a banana creme tort thing. This was a much fancier place and along with a bottle of wine we spent a little over 80 E per couple. But well worth it for almost 3 hours of entertainment.
As you will notice throughout this travelogue, I'm kind of fixated on food. It was fabulous during our entire trip. It may even inspire us to do more cooking ourselves, but only since there aren't any good French cafes near us. And finding a good baguette is next to impossible, despite the claims of Panera.
We stumbled back to the B&B and bed.
The saga continues here.