Bayeux Stopover

In addition to Juno Beach, we also made a pit stop in Bayeux on our way back to Paris.  It has the distinction of being the first French town liberated from Nazi occupation following D-Day, and since the Germans abandoned it to shore up the defenses in nearby Caen, Bayeux was spared the destruction that many other towns and cities in Normandy suffered.  As a result, it has maintained its very quaint character, with a mix of stone and half-timber buildings and a picturesque river running right through town.

The town is charming for sure, but its real claim to fame is the Bayeux Tapestry.  The tapestry, which apparently isn't actually a tapestry but an embroidered cloth (I wonder how many boring arguments historians/interior designers have had on this subject?), recounts the 1066 Norman conquest of England, led by William the Conqueror.  It was commissioned soon after the conquest and is in amzing shape for a 950 year old piece of cloth.  At nearly seventy meters long, the tapestry is like a huge comic book (or graphic novel, to use the modern euphemism) detailing the events leading to the invasion, the preparation of William's armies and the Battle of Hastings itself.  The museum containing the tapestry gives out audio guides that walk through the story frame by frame.  To give you an idea of how much information is on the cloth, the audio tour takes about twenty minutes.  All three of us really enjoyed the museum, as I think most people would, whether or not they're into the history of this period.

Scenes from a photographic copy of the Bayeux Tapestry (you aren't allowed to take pictures of the real thing)