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Where Time Has Stood Still
Entry 35 of 54 | show all | print this entry |
We arrived two hours later in the little city of Bayuex in the Normandy region. Again we had to find a place to stay, so we set off towards the city center. Our Europe book listed the only hostel as been called Family Home, which had signs conveniently leading us to it. But then the signs stopped. We asked a local policeman who was walking with his partner around town. He escorted us to the hostel. Thats how we arrived in Normandy, police escort. They happened to have room available for two nights for the 5 of us. This hostel was great. We had the entire attic room to ourselves that had a table and chairs which proved to be useful for all our card games and wine drinking. The town itself was adorable. Straight out of storybook land. Once we were settled in the hostel we went exploring. We went into the towns dominating cathedral and discovered that it had a really cool crypt. It was small but had these old paintings on all the pillars of the apostles. We ventured to the main street where John waisted no time in finding a fine alcohol store. Being the connoisseur he is, he bought a very nice bottle of Calvados which this region is known for. He also got the location of a wine shop and a good place for dinner. We bought a couple bottles of the regions wines to sample and then had a lovely french meal. We returned back to the hostel ladened with wine. We drank our way through the regions finest while playing many different card games.
The next day was devoted to D-day beaches. We had found pamphlets about tours at our hostel and didn´t know how to book one. So we went to the tourist office and the gave us a map and showed us how to book it and where to meet them. Since the half day tour didn´t start until 1 we had a couple of hours to kill. So we found a little bakery we discovered the day before, and bought yummy treats. On a tip from two Canadians we met in our hostel the night before, we went to the the tapestry. This is the towns claim to fame. It has got to be the longest tapestry in history, measuring 70m long and .5m wide. This tapestry told the story of how William the Conquer became the king of England. The tapestry was in surprisingly good condition and was still very colorful. I think it was made in like 1066 so its survived a very long time. We were pleasantly surprised by the awesomeness of this tapestry, and I recommend you visit it if you ever find yourself in Bayuex. The story it tells is quite interesting, especially when told pictorially, but its a bit long to get into it here.
Once 1pm rolled around we met our tour guide more or less right outside the tapestry. He took us to the train station where we boarded a bigger bus with more people. This tour took us to the German cemetery, the remains of German bunkers, Omaha Beach and museum, and the American cemetery. This was one of the most unbelievably tours and sights we have seen yet. I never expected the d-day beaches to be one of the highlights of this trip so far, everyone should go for a visit. The German cemetery we interesting and beautiful in its own way. Since the people fighting in this area were mostly part of the Hitler Youth Organization due to the training facilities they had there, 80% of the Germans buried here were under 20 years old. We moved onto the cliff top point between Omaha and Utah beaches. This was where the Germans housed their big cannons to fight off naval ships and aircrafts. This is also where most of their bunkers were. This large grassy cliff top used to be completely flat with cement bunkers sticking out of the earth every so often. Now it is pot-marked with craters created by air raids and the war ships. It was crazy to see chunks of cement, barbed wire, and metal strewn about the crater filled area. It was as if time stood still and we were standing in the middle of the battlefield. It was absolutely jaw dropping. And amazingly enough, you had free reign to go where ever you wanted to. You could go into the remains of the bunkers, squeeze over barbed wire, or run down into the deep craters. We were all reluctant to leave this area, but had to get back on the bus. Our next stop was the Omaha Beach Museum which was extremely cheesey. It was filled with a bunch of mannequins in uniform feigning battle or driving jeeps while music from the 40s was playing. The cool part about this museum was the 20 minute video they played. This was entirely comprised of film shot of American troops during their training for d-day, their time in Great Britain, and the actual battle itself, as well as interviews from veterans who stormed the beach. It was amazing to see all this actual footage. From there we went out to the beach, which looks just like a normal beach. There is no scar from the war on the sand. There is only one German bunker that remains and it was turned into a memorial for the US National Guards who fought and died. Inside the bunker an original German 88 cannon still exists. It was easy to see why this was one of the most gruesome battles. The Germans had such a good position hidden among the brush of the cliff face, while the Americans were just moving targets on the sand. It is truly amazing that they were able to capture this beach. Our last stop was the American cemetery which is featured in the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan. This is the most amazing cemetery. It puts Arlington to shame. Thousands of white Italian marble crosses and Jewish stars of David in perfectly straight lines, no matter what direction to look at them. Perfectly trimmed grass and trees surround the area and there is a monument to all the soldiers who died fighting that shows the allied troops attack on the Nazi´s in Europe and the attack on the D-day beaches. Behind this monument was a large semi circle of stone with all the names of the MIA soldiers. So many names. And to top it all off this cemetery was right on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. In the complete silence that covered this area you could hear the waves crashing on the cliffs. We left the tour in awe, and I feel, a little more patriotic. We returned to town where we had another lovely dinner and went back to our hostel to play more cards.
The next day it was time to move on, even though we had come to really love this little town of Bayeux. Next stop was Rouen, which no matter how many times we asked how the town was pronounced we couldn´t get it right. This town is the place where they executed Joan of Arc. So we found a centrally located place to stay and went in search of this execution sight. In the process we went into the town´s Notre dam, which was another cathedral. Point of interest in this one is that they had pictures up showing the damage it sustained in WWII and how they fixed it. We walked to the river to see the view and found a plaque that said Joan of Arc was burned and then her body was dumped in the river. What the plaque didn´t say is whether or not they threw her off this bridge. We were all a little confused about why they labeled this bridge with this plaque when the next bridge over was named after her. The was just one of the many labeling problems this town had. We walked back over the Joan of Arc bridge to find ourselves on the Joan of Arch street. We took this all the way up, stopping at every old monument to see if it was where she died. Both of the places we stopped weren´t labeled. Eventually we walked down the main drag, which, for once, was not named after Joan of Arc. This was the main street in the old town and all the buildings were magnificently old and barely upright. It was amazing to see the old buildings with all the thatched wood running through them having modern shopping stores on the bottom levels. We walked until we found a square where a very modern church was build after the old one was destroyed. There were ruins of a foundation in this courtyard which we could only assume belonged to the old church cause again they didnt have them labeled. We walked around the back of the church to find a little flower garden with a little plastic sign that said "this is where Joan of arc was executed". We all agreed that they could do a little better than that. Since we succeeded in finding Joan´s site of death, we sat and had a drink together. The entire time in our wanderings we had been seeing people in weird costumes selling baked goods off of plates. And as we sat down for our drink we noticed that they all seemed to be congregating in the square, as were a group of younger teenagers. The teenagers started having a dance off among themselves and pretty soon the older kids in costume started challenging them. The teenagers were too good so they eventually just formed a big circle and cheered on the teenagers. It was pretty interesting to see French dancing, a lot of fluid arm movement that involved waving them around you head, something that none of us could of accomplished without loosing an eye. Since we had some time to kill we decided to hit the shops of the town. Braden was the most successful in finding a jacket and shirt, I managed to find a shirt as well. We went back to the hotel to freshen up and then find a place for dinner. We ended up walking all over the place and couldn´t decided on a place to eat, until we found a fondue restaurant. But of course you couldn´t get in the place with out a reservation, so we settled for a place near by that turned out to be really good. Since we had been up late the two night previous, we all went back to the hotel and crashed.
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| 35. | Where Time Has Stood Still - Rouen, France Oct 11, 2007 |
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