Europe Trip: Day Two in Bayeux

Second day in Bayeux, had breakfast in the hotel and then head out for the day. Was planning on heading straight to the Tapestry but took a spur of the moment detour up to the Cathedral and ended up going inside. Definitely worth it, amazing building with stunning architecture and religious significance. It was here that William forced Harold to take the oath, which he later broke and started William the Conqueror's invasion of England. The mix of Norman-Romanesque and Gothic style makes for a very unique and interesting building. As we left the church the Bayeux Train arrived (Tourist train pulled by a tractor or something) so we bought tickets for that to travel around the town.

First stop was the Musee Memorial Bataille de Normandie, and being a fan of history, particularly World War 2, made it a must stop. Spent an hour or so wandering through the museum, lots of items recovered from the D-Day Landings and Battle of Normandy as a focus.

Left the Museum and walked across the road to the British Military Cemetery where a mix of 4000 Commonwealth and around 500 German troops who fell during the Battle of Normandy are buried. Beautiful site and I found it touching that the German graves were treated with equal dignity and respect as the others. The Bayeux Memorial across the road from the cemetery has an enscription in Latin which reads "We, once conquered by William, have now set free the Conqueror’s native land.”

From there we walked back to the Hotel (via a patisserie) to have some lunch. Had a pretty awesome chocolate eclair.

After that we (again) decided to head over to see the Tapestry and actually made it this time. On the walk over Willem asked me what the Tapestry was, so I told him it was a medieval comic strip about a battle over who would be King of England, also there was a guy called Willelm in it, so he thought that was cool. Didn't get any photos of the Tapestry itself as you're not allowed to use a flash, which is fair enough. There's a section of the museum which talks about the effort involved in maintaining the tapestry (after it's many years of neglect) and basically 'having it on display' is slowly ruining it due to exposure to even low light. Highlight's included a 'typo' in which some poor soul called Willelm ' Willem', and also a naked guy in section 15 with his doodle out.

Did some more wandering around Bayeux after this, Bel's french is waaaaaay better than mine. However I found a coffee shop and found the courage to attempt to order something. Was 'relatively' successful. I managed to order 'en cafe s'il vous plait', unfortunately my attempts to then be specific an ask for 'un cappuccino' ended up with me receiving TWO coffees. Room for improvement perhaps.