Ancient and not so ancient battles

Thursday 2^nd June

The main focus for today was to visit the Bayeux Tapestry again. When we were here 2 years ago I felt that the audio guide rushed you through a bit too fast and I really wanted to see more. We had no trouble finding the location for the tapestry (Dora knows it all – well almost all) and conveniently someone left their parking spot just around the corner. It was meter parking so we paid for 3 hours figuring that was tons of time – but forgetting that from 12 to 2 parking is free. So we had parking paid up till 3.30.

The tapestry was just as stunning as I remembered from the first time. This time the audio seemed to be a lot slower and I did get time to absorb the story, and look at the individual elements and the stitching.

From there we went to visit the cathedral. Last time we were in Bayeux it was raining (today also) and we just looked at the outside of the church. This time we went inside and afterwards we wandered the streets behind the church. We found a small lace atelier (studio) and went inside and watched some ladies doing bobbin lace. Lace making of any sort always fascinates me – I just don’t see how they can read and follow the pattern with so many different bobbins to work with. They had a beautiful black lace shawl for sale - only 40,000 euros and estimated 10,000 hours of work! Most of what they had for sale there seemed to be priced at 4 euro per hour. Just as well we do craft stuff for love, not money.

The cathedral at Bayeux.

This was on the roof of one of the domed sections of the roof.

There were lots of different stone carvings high up on the walls.

We had a fabulous formule lunch at a restaurant here. Rob had fish with beurre blanc sauce and I had pork ribs with honey sauce, then dessert was rhubarb crumble. Yummo.

Looking along the street from our lunch place in Bayeux. Just behind us was a cake shop with hundreds of yummy looking cakes and chocolates in the windows - we moved on quickly.

We headed on towards Honfleur via the coastal roads which took us to some of the notable sites during the D Day landings – Juno Beach and the Pegasus bridge. All along the coastal towns we drove through there are lots of flags flying - French, British, Canandian, American. It is the anniversary of D Day on 6th June and a lot of events are planned in the area. It is 72nd anniversary so not what you'd call a special number, so I wonder if they do this every year. We have been hearing a lot of British and American accents in the area, and there are a lot of cars from GB here as well. 

Juno beach - 2nd beach from the east of the D Day landings. There is a large Canadian memorial here.

Army dog - like the camo?

This chateau overlooks the Pegasus bridge.

The Pegasus bridge -  as part of the D Day offensive a unit of Glider infantry was to land, take the bridges intact and hold them until relieved. This was successful and played an important role following the Normandy invasion.

Now we are in Honfleur for 2 nights. We have been into the city for dinner and a bit of a drive around – looks fabulous so keen to explore tomorrow.

Honfleur - just a taste for now.