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| Bayeaux Cathedral |
Today was amazing! So
much ancient history. I should have been
a history major. Or a history of
communication major. Or a communication
and history double major. Anyhoo….I
adored today! We got up and ate
breakfast and hopped in our adorable car.
Cursed that our useless credit cards cannot be used in automatic
machines and I had another meltdown about the stupidity of the American credit
card system in not being able to pay for anything because it doesn’t have a
chip when they know that Europeans use chips.
Got some change from the nice parking garage attendant and moved on.
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| Inside the cathedral |
After that, on we went to Bayeaux. What a cool little town! So medieval and so cute :o) Darling!!
We lucked out and found a parking spot in a free parking lot. What a mélange of cars!! They were everywhere and parking everywhere
and there was only one way in or out.
Holy crap! Again, living in DC
has adequately prepared me for this insanity but still….
Parked and went to the Bayeaux Cathedral. They all seem to be name Notre Dame,
haha! This cathedral is stunning! Tall spires outside with a couple of
impressive towers too. It is about 1000
years old. Several chapels along the
apse. They also had a very impressive
set of posters that chronicled what happened during history while the cathedral
has existed. It included Popes, world
leaders, notable sports events, authors, painters, and of course, wars. It was
almost overwhelming with the amount of information on them!
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| Inside the cathedral |
In every Catholic Church there is an opportunity to buy
candles for prayers. I’m sure that I
needed to buy many more candles than I did to make up for my meltdowns; but I
didn’t buy them for me….I bought them for others.
The altar was very nice too.
The choir stalls overlooked it.
You could see in some places where the different styles of architecture
were incorporated as repairs or when a continuation of building occurred. One of my favorite new phrases is “flamboyant
gothic.” It just makes me laugh because
(and do not judge me) I think of a gay man walking through the church twirling
the purple silk scarf in his left hand that he’s wearing around his neck, commenting
on all the “fabulous” architecture and “just loving” what the architect did
with this place. Haha!
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| Outside view of the Bayeaux Cathedral |
Romanesque is more straight forward, gothic incorporated
points at the top of the arches, and when you get flamboyant….watch out! Woo hooo…things get crazy with all sort of
understated curlicues and carvings around the arches/posts. That was sarcastic. You can tell it’s different, but flamboyant
is definitely not what comes to mind when you look at them, haha!
I got a few different pictures of the inside and out. If you have never read Ken Follet’s Pillars
of the Earth, make some time to read it.
After reading the books, it gives you a far greater understanding of
what it took to make a cathedral. It was
a lifetime’s work for generations of families.
When I go into a cathedral now, I have a far greater appreciation for
those who worked the stones to make these buildings so glorious!
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| Bayeaux Tapestry |
From there we walked over to the Bayeaux Tapestry. This is a 1000 year old piece of propaganda
(that’s what the audio guide said) that tells the story of William the Bastard’s
(known today as William the Conqueror) triumph over his ½ brother Harold, who swore an
oath not to take the crown of England when their cousin (King Edward II of England) died.
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| Bayeaux Tapestry |
Harold thought…forget this stupidity! I would like to be King of England and think
I have a legitimate claim (which he did by genealogy). William said…..”Oh no you didn’t! You swore on a Bible and on some other
important things that you wouldn’t make a claim on the throne that was clearly
indicated was mine by the now-dead King.
I’m going to have to kick your butt in a day-long battle at Hastings
with my massively awesome and well-prepared army that will be equal in numbers
to your ill-prepared and inadequately weaponed army. So there!” (Here I’m certain he stuck out his
tongue too).
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| Bayeaux Tapestry |
So….William, Duke of Normandy, bastard son of someone who
was a cousin to the King of England and who had a legitimate claim to the
English throne and the man the now-dead King of England indicated to all should
be the next King, sailed across the Channel and whooped on some half-brother
butt and claimed England as his own. As
well as Normandy, since he was already Duke there. Harold died with an arrow through
his eye. Bet he didn’t see that one
coming….bwah ha ha!!
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| Bayeaux Tapestry |
The whole tapestry told of Harold’s valor and
desire to keep what he thought was his and of William’s knowledge and
understanding that what was supposed to be his (England) was worth fighting
for. Thus, it didn’t denigrate Harold and didn’t anger the Anglo-Saxons who had just been defeated,
while at the same time, it allowed the Normans to see how amazingly studly
William was. To this day, we remember
William the First, but alas even I have already forgotten the name of the
half-brother dead dude and had to look it up so I could add it into the blog above, haha!!
William didn’t have a very good start to his Kingship. There were a lot of angry people who were not
too happy about being ruled by a Norman Duke.
“Meh….no problem”, he said. “I
will give away numerous parcels of lands to my faithful knights/soldiers, and I
will also replace the corrupt clergy with clergy faithful to me.” So,
throughout his lifetime he valiantly tried to whip England into shape. Sort of worked, but not entirely. But what is a reign in England without some
crazy controversy, right?
After the viewing, for which the audio guide was awesome, we
went to each lunch at a café with very gross tasting food. We found an umbrella and I ate my fish stick
and fries (apparently French don’t know how to do anything close to real fish
and chips) and John had his very sad looking toasted bread with two spots of
goat cheese and tomatoes. It looked sad. Oh well…..I got burnt yesterday, so it was
important for me to stay out of the sun and under the umbrella.
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| Mont St. Michel |
Walked back to the car and the parking lot was even crazier
that it was when we got there. Who’d a
thunk THAT was possible?! Made it out
and headed west toward Mont St. Michele.
This is a pilgrimage site. John
read up on the tides and the best times to visit. We decided that we would get there around 4pm
because Rick Steves said that way we would beat the crowds and so that we could
see the incoming tide which was supposed to be around 7pm.
You arrive at the parking lot, which is about a 40 minute
walk or a 10 minute bus ride. We opted
for the bus. John didn’t even recommend
the walk…I would have said no anyway :o)
We arrived at the bottom of the island and we noted the water
level. We got there around 4 pm, so the
tide was still out. When you arrive, you
have to walk up to the abbey through the village that sprouted up along the
way. It is home to a million little tourist shops and
restaurants. Rick Steves said nothing
has really changed over the last 1000 years, haha! The walk from the bottom up to the top where
the abbey is was pretty steep. I am out
of shape.
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| St. Michael the Archangel has a sword in one hand and a set of scales in the other hand. |
Apart from being a pilgrimage site, it has the distinction
of having the world’s second-most dramatic tides, with the Bay of Fundy in Nova
Scotia having the first. I have babbled
on for years and years about going to the Bay of Fundy, so much that I’ve
convinced John it’s cool too, hahah!!
Thus, having the opportunity to see the 2nd most dramatic
tides was too good to pass up. That and
from all the pictures, it looked utterly amazing! It truly was!! An umbrella for shade, several bottles of
water, one of wine, some munchies and a couple of chairs would have made for an
absolutely amazing afternoon of watching the tides. Unfortunately, the way the whole rock’s set
up isn’t conducive for tide-watching.
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| the village on the way up the side of the mount |
The first place of worship was probably built around
708. Aubert, Bishop of Avranches (a town
close by) had a vision of St. Michael the Archangel who asked him to build a
church on this site. The abbey is built
on a monstrous rock in a bay. It is an
odd little island, but perfect for the abbey. There is a statue of the point
where the bishop began building the church.
It is now a cathedral. It was
expanded by the Benedictine monks in the 10th century. Over the next 4 centuries, the village around
the base of the abbey and all the way down the rock, sprung up.
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| This statue of St. Michael represents the location of the original building site of the 1st church |
During the 100 Years War (between England and France…apparently
there were bitter feelings about Williams butt-whooping….I used to remember,
but don’t now….I’ll add a link here so we can all learn about it
again…..)….anyhoo, during this war, it was used as a military defensive area
and it helped keep the British out of this part of France.
After the French Revolution, the abbey was used as a prison
until 1863. About a decade later, it was
classified as an historic monument and restoration commenced and has continued. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and after
seeing it, one I definitely believe deserves the recognition.
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| view from the cloisters looking at the chapel |
We finally made it to the top where we bought entrance into
the abbey and an audio tour. The audio
tour of the abbey was very well done and worth the 6E for a couple. It gave a little history of the abbey as a
pilgrimage site and as a prison. It gave
the listener an idea of how things were decorated, what kinds of people
visited, who lived there, and what they did.
It must have been an amazing, bustling, crazy place to be, as pilgrims from
all over Europe poured in to worship.
And, I imagine that seeing it from miles away, as you can, must have
been overwhelming for those who came on foot or by horse.
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| John walking down the stairs |
After we toured the abbey, which took about an hour, maybe
more, we positioned ourselves to see the tide coming in. At first, you couldn’t really tell that water
was coming in. Then, as you watched, you
could see the water quickly making its way into the area. Rick Steves (our travel bible) said that the
current can be as swift as a galloping horse!
How clever. We were looking at
the west and the sun was beating down on us and we were getting hot, so we went
over to the other side of the abbey grounds to see what was going on in the
shaded part of the bay.
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| John walking up the stairs in the abbey |
You could see where the water marks were from the morning
tides. It didn’t look like it would make
it up to the island walls, but it did eventually. It also didn’t look like it was a very high,
high tide. Probably enough that everyone
would have gotten wet walking around, but not high enough to get soaked. I imagine that during a storm or a very
impressive high tide, that the waters would be crazy!
Now there is a bridge/causeway, but in the pilgrim times
they waded across the salt marshes by foot or cart to get to the village at the
bottom. Cannot imagine! I didn’t hear how long the
average pilgrim stayed, but after traveling all that way, I imagine they had a
lot of praying to do, haha!
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| small flying buttresses (I think) |
We wanted to eat, but it was only 6pm and the restaurant we
wanted to eat at opened at 7. No
problem, we decided, we’ll get a drink at this place just down the way and sit
outside to watch the tide come in. The
service was horrendous!! It took us over
20 minutes to get our drinks. They were
closing down, we discovered after we left, but there were no signs saying so
and no one came to kick us out. We had
time to kill before dinner and it was in the shade, so there we sat.
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| panorama of the tide coming in |
Normandy is in an apple cider region and they have lovely
cider! Since I wouldn’t be driving for a
while, I had a cup of cider. It was
really good! John had a wine that he
said would have been better with food.
But…again, it was in the shade and it was close to the water so we could
pop up and down to see the tide’s progress.
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| mussels for dinner!! |
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| medieval home |
Just before 7, we walked the few steps back up to the
restaurant to eat dinner. I had been
craving mussels and they had a set menu with mussels as an option….hurray! I had pureed bean soup in a vegetable base
which was delicious! Then, I had the
mussels and for dessert, I had two petit cups of chocolate mousse. The region is not only known for its seafood,
but also for the salt-marsh fed lambs, so John started out with a smoked salmon
plate, the lamb, and finished up with a divine looking compote with an amazing
amount of whipped cream! I settled for
the water and he had a Heineken.
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| View of the abbey from the base |
I drove back to Caen and John took another nap. He catnapped throughout the day because he
was still so tired. Nothing exciting
except trying to get gas and having an utterly inferior American credit card
without a chip. The area around the
apartment was quieter, although France was playing a game in the world
cup. I, once again, slept well and
finally John was able to get a few hours’ sleep.
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