It was another beautiful day as we drove out to the ancient city of Bayeux, 20 miles or so west of Caen. It was always a wish of mine to see this place, home of the Cathedral and the famous 1000-year old tapestry I had learned about when I was a teenager. I remember it from the set of British stamps issued in 1966 to celebrate the Millennial anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. We parked in the medieval centre on cobbled streets besides half-timbered houses with the towering Norman-Gothic Cathedral looming in front of us. Our first objective was to visit the tapestry itself and we were both thrilled to see it for the first time. An embroidery of wool yarn on woven linen the tapestry, made in the 11th century, is 70 metres long and 50 centimetres high and recounts the tale of the conquest of England on 14 October 1066, led by William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy - an exceptional document about life in Europe in the Middle Ages. It is thought to have been made in Canterbury, around 1070 but there is still some debate about this. The tapestry appears to give the Norman version of events- a pro-Norman propaganda to justify the invasion of England. Whatever the history and it's source standing before it was a highlight of our trip. We toured the cathedral afterwards, a gem of the Norman architecture that was consecrated in 1077 by Bishop Odo, the brother of William and depicted on the Tapestry, who it is believed commissioned it and probably intended it to be hung in the cathedral nave. Following a serious fire in the 12th century it was rebuilt in the Gothic style the next century and thankfully was untouched during the bombing in WW2. Before leaving Bayeux we spent an hour in the
Musee d'Art et d'Histoire Baron Gerard nearby, presenting through ancient archaeological treasures recovered in the area and over 600 works of art from the past 500 years a detailed history of Bayeux.
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| Musee d'Art et d'Histoire Baron Gerard |
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A few miles away on the coast near the small village of St-Laurent-sur-Mer and at Pointe du Hoc we found the Memorial Museum at Omaha Beach where on D-Day American troops of the 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions were brutally cut down as they swarmed ashore, leaving the beach strewn with the wounded, the dead and broken equipment. It was here on the cliff-like slope that overlooked the beach they began to negotiate the barbed wire and by midday breach the German defences. At the same time, a little further to the west, the 2nd Ranger Battalion was charged with climbing the 30-metre cliff at Ponte du Hoc, assaulting the German battery and destroying it's guns. The site here still bears traces of the German artillery battery as well as deep scars from the fierce fighting which cost the lives of 135 Rangers. We left the coast and the brilliant sunshine with thankful hearts to those brave men one last time before returning to Caen and prepared for our next step of this trip - a ferry crossing back to England. gws
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| Omaha Beach |
They climbed aboard with anxious heart
The madly sea-tossed landing-craft,
The sea-fog on that sad morn
All but shrouded the pale dawn,
As if heav'n itself dared not see
The hounds of hell that day set free.
They disembarked under hail of shot
Spewing up all - what knew not what-
Facing those cliffs, with gunfire ablaze.
Waves bore broken bodies along
The length of that encrimsoned sand,
Where death was given so free a hand.
The foam is red.
Allis now still, save for the breeze
That carries back across the seas
The souls of America's sons,
While the sun, now and then, warms
Those twenty-year olds who sleep today
Facing the sea in Normandy.
