North France: Caen

In the morning, we had breakfast with Mandy, Paul, Malcolm and Clive and said our goodbyes. It was a great time with them; we will try to keep in touch. We were off to Monte Saint Michel, but instead because of the trains took a day trip to the city of Caen (we missed the morning train to Pontersson).

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In Caen we visited 3 main sites:

· The castle of William the Conqueror that houses many museums. Within the castle, we visited:

o Musee de Beaux Arts: we saw a fabulous exhibit on the work of Jean-Charles Langlois (1789-1870). He was a painter, sketcher, and photographer whose specialty was to capture the essence of war. He covered the pyramids, the Middle East, and some European wars. It was a very impressive exhibit-his use of color in his paintings was just as beautiful as the detail in his drawings. He photographed architecture mainly, but also fell in love with photographing scenes from his gigantic panoramic paintings. I wish I could have bought the book, but it was too heavy to lug around. Check out his work online!

o Musee de Normandie: this museum was free, and we learned about the history before and after William conquered the area. It had many beautiful artifacts in addition to a great history behind the area's lace making and carpentry.