France, Friday, April 12, 2019

Bonjour again my friends. We arise this morning to a sunny but cool day. We breakfast again on croissants, butter, jam, baguettes, juice and coffee. A pattern seems to be developing?

First on foot to the Bayeux Tapestry museum that we missed yesterday. We arrive early, 9:15, and miss the first rush of crowds. What a wonderful piece of history. This tapestry, created between 1070 and 1080 gives a contemporaneous history of the 1066 Battle of Hastings and the events leading up to William the Conqueror’s ascent to the throne of England. The entire tapestry is some 70 meters long and is displayed in a continuous glass case at eye level in one light controlled room. You are accompanied by a handheld audio device that narrates what you are seeing. What a way to learn history. It was one of the most educational trips to a museum I have ever experienced. We recommend that, if you are not familiar with this piece of history, take a moment to google it on your devices.

Next we mount our vehicle for the drive to the town of Arromanche, the site of the WWII Normandy landings. We view, again the museum with a wonderful guided tour of the displays outlining the incredible engineering feat required to create a man-made harbour here, under enemy fire, in order to supply the invading Allied forces. 70 ton concrete breakfronts towed across the English Channel, 100 old ships sailed across the channel and sunk stem to stern around the harbour to creat a barrier for the harbour, huge steel roadways that would float up and down with the tides to allow the loading of the trucks, one every 5 seconds, that would bring all the supplies ashore for the troops. Our second most educational museum stop of the day.

From there, we traveled a short few kilometres, stopping first at the American Military Cemetery. Truly magnificent; row upon row of orderly white crosses, interspersed with an occasional Star of David; monuments to commemorate over 25,000 troops that lost their life on European soil during the D-Day invasion. 9100 troops are buried here. Howie said that the scope and view of this cemetery is even more moving than that in Arlington National Cemetery.

Next a few more kilometres to walk Omaha Beach. This, along with the adjoining Utah Beach, was the landing point for the U.S. landing force. This point was the toughest fought battle along the landing points. A crescent shaped beach front in cliffs upon which only 500 German soldiers in 11 concrete machine gun emplacements on the cliffs mowed down thousands of invading soldiers. As the literature says, the beaches ran red with blood. Seeing the area in person brings it all to reality. We stop at the nearby restaurant for a snack of wine, beer and frites.

Next we travel another 10 kilometres to the German military cemetery. This also, in a different way, was a moving place. Here some 21,000 soldiers are buried, two to a grave stone marker set flush to the ground and interspersed every few rows with a series of 5 squat black basalt crosses - no Star of David here - in row upon row. The contrast of the liberator (orderly white gleaming markers for the American cemetery) and the low dark humility of the conquered (German cemetery) creates for us a sad commentary on the human race and all the misery we perpetrate upon one another.

We drive back to home base, Bayeux, scoring a primo parking place near the hotel. Then off to dinner at Le Florentine, a nice Italian restaurant, for some of the best pizza, with a crisp thin crust and light tasty toppings we have ever enjoyed, accompanied by house wine and some local French beer, the only thing to top it was the dessert of caramel covered ice cream with a whipped cream dab on top. We poured into bed around 10:00 and prepared for another day of travel tomorrow.