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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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“The Channel was a natural barrier with wild seas that would stop the British invading” |
Bayeux, after rain overnight is just beautiful with its narrow streets, cobblestone roads and shopping/café strips lined with massive baskets of flowers. Bayeux is the location of the great tapestry that was created to depict William the Conqueror’s travel and victorious travel to England to rightly claim his empire back from Harold. Medieval architecture and abbeys peak around every corner, with lots of visitors taking photos. There is a river with a loch running through Bayeux; close by we found a café for baguettes, pie, and ice creams.
Bayeux is surrounded by rolling hills with stone house farm communities famous for excellence in beef, milk products – cheeses and creams, apples and ciders and caramels. So far every small village also celebrates its own vineyards and wines. The Bayeux streets are filled stores filled with produce. The fish shop has peopled queued up for anything from shark to mussels, the fruit shop has barrows of fruit and veggies neatly packed –bananas being approx A$3.00 per kilo!! The boucherie is spiffily clean, and butchers in starched aprons with freshly cut meats. And other stores with their unique quaint style. Many of the apple cider houses have tastings which is very comforting for walking winding roads and cobblestones as you can wobble all over Bayeux and nobody knows how tanked you are!! Not us as we are driving, and Will has already been warmly received by the gendarmes. Bayeaux is one of our many favourite places and it would be easy to spend a week here. Have a look/see at www.bayeux-bessin -tourism.com .
Next stop, we go to Arromanches, to visit Port Wilson. Here is a very important town in the history of World War 2 D-Day landing on 6 June 1944 displayed in the Musee du Debarquement. Let me say here that Kimmy is a bit reticent to visit another war museum/site but this one has made quite an impression on all of us. A very brief history does not do justice to this town, but we will attempt to summarize its significance. Germany had totally occupied Europe and Hilter was confident that the control they have over Europe and Britain and allies was to occupy the ports of France, the only places that the British could arrive to assist Europe and invade Germany. The Channel was a natural barrier with wild seas that would stop the British invading. Winston Churchill and his leading officers decided to create an artificial port that would allow the British and allies to arrive on territory occupied by the Germans as an entry to Europe.
Secretly the entire British Empire created pontoons of concrete, organized huge structures that could be partially sunk to put up walls for the port, made a steel bridge that would connect the harbour, and allow tanks and land vehicles to be transported of the port and on to land…driving up the beaches and across France to battle Germany. They transported all the huge pontoons etc by tugs, and succeeded with the French celebrating their arrival for securing Europe with a huge influx of British Allies capable of defeating Germany. And on D-Day they succeeded despite the huge challenges of the concept of an artificial port, to its success. A great coastal site to visit which still has some 15 concrete pontoons out from the shore despite them being only able to survive 6 months. There are tanks and guns as monuments around the town.
Now the hard part…finding a room. We sensed we had arrived at another festival as our next stop Saint Michel is, as the signs say, ‘Hotel Complet”. Not far out in a hillside village called Dol de Bretagne we found a lodging, B & B, in an old farmhouse owned by a delightful elderly lady and her old black dog who speak no English, but we all managed a wonderful conversation about all sorts of things, particularly Billy. He was really tired so she fussed around getting him tucked up and comfortable. The dog was happy to sit and watch us all settle in, and spoke woof as a universal language. Our room has huge timber beams and original stone walls and the best view in France. Having a few G & Ts I realized that not only could I see a horse, suddenly there was chickens, and then a turkey. It rained gently and a huge rainbow appeared. And it is so quite. Tomorrow we wake to a real country breakfast without wrappers. We do end up in the most wonderful places and people. Goodnight.
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