December 2, 2005

Thanksgiving - Part 1: Normandy

Bayeux and the First Invasion

Back in the Etats-Unis we generally have a rule that we never travel anywhere on Thanksgiving weekend. But here (where, of course, it isn't Thanksgiving Weekend at all), we decided to drive to the north (a 9-11 hour trip by car), all the way up into Normandy after having been invited to two Thanksgiving dinners.

The first was to be in Giverny (home of Monet's famous garden) on Thursday the 24th; the second in Nantes on the following Saturday. Since Dave wanted to see the D-Day beaches, and I wanted to see the Bayeux Tapestry and the town of Honfleur, which I had heard from friends was very sweet, we decided to leave a few days early and spend some time in the area around Bayeux, which is just a few kilometers from "La Manche" (English Channel) and the beaches on which the liberation of France began on June 6, 1944.

So we set out on the Autoroute from Carcassonne. Eleven hours later (stopping for lunch and coffee) we finally arrived at the lovely Hotel D'Argouges in Bayeux (21 rue St-Patrice, Bayeux 14402, France). The last two rond-points (round abouts) were a little difficult because we managed to lose the belt that controlled the power steering somewhere along the line.

The entrance to the hotel (just off the market square) is particularly narrow, and Dave was barely able to manhandle the car in (and hurrah! private parking in the back!). But, no problem, the elegant Mme. Pierrette (??) who welcomed us to the hotel and brought us our petite dejeuner sent us off to the local Renault dealer who fixed us up in almost no time. Which was a good thing, because they closed at noon on Saturday and we could have been stuck without a car for the weekend.

 

 

French Lesson for the day:

Power Steering = "Direction Assisté"

Belt (Mechanical) = "courroie" ("ceinture" is the thing you put around your waist)

Repair (car) = "dépannage"

"How much do I owe" = "Combien je vous dois?"

We were out and about in time to get to the museum that houses the Bayeux Tapestry. (We could have walked in any case, Bayeux is a very manageable size).

The Tapestry, which is 72 meters long and about 1 meter high, is a pictorial description or narrative (it could almost be called a "film strip") of the various adventures and misadventures of Harold of England and William of Normandy that ultimately resulted in The Battle of Hastings in 1066 where William of Normandy (William the Conqueror) won the crown of England. (Which, according to the Tapestry had already been promised to him anyway by the dying King.)

As you can see, it's not really a tapestry, but an embroidery with the main story going on in the middle and various commentary and decoration in the upper and lower borders. All done in only 5 colors of thread - its really a beautiful and interesting thing. They give you headphones that tell you the background and story of each "scene" - moving you along a quite a good clip, I might add. (Click below for a link to a site about the Battle of Hastings and the Bayeux Tapestry).

Being there in November -- and just before lunch -- there wasn't any crowd at all, and we looked at the whole thing twice.  David was surprised by how interested he found it (he didn't really want to go at first, thinking that it was just some kind of girly needlework stuff).  We came back in the afternoon to look at the exhaustive explanatory exhibition (all writing and pictures) and a short movie showing the tapestry with sound effects and such.  They (the museum) usually route you through all this before before you actually go in to see the tapestry-- but we found that we were glad that we had looked at the tapestry itself first.  

I think that if you look at all the explanatory material first, it kind of takes the charm out of the real object - plus you are more or less mentally exhausted before you even set eyes on it.  So....if you ever go there, I recommend looking at the tapestry first, and then going back to the exhibits.  (Also, I can only imaging with some horror what kind of mob must be there in the summer!)

Another Invasion....

Some 800 years later, the channel was crossed again, this time coming from the English side - and with tanks rather than horses.

One of a series of surviving German gun emplacements at Longues-sur-Mer

That evening we took a quick trip out to Arromanche, where the British built a "temporary" harbor, called a "Mulberry" and port to support the off-loading of the incredible amount of men and materiel needed to support the landing and subsequent fighting. You can still see remnants of the harbor there, which was built in record time by first sinking old vessels to create a breakwater, then sinking specially built concrete barges to create pilings for roadways used to offload the ships. Quite an amazing feat of engineering, actually - and very likely a key factor in the ability of the Allies to successfully pursue the liberation of France.

You can see the remnants of the concrete barges sunk to create a breakwater and temporary port.

Dave was quite interested in this because his Grandfather, Jack Holcombe, was in part responsible for the resupply effort at Utah and Omaha beaches. No doubt he spent some time at Arromanche (Gold Beach) as well. One source called him "The eyes and ears of General Marshall at the Normandy Beaches". He later worked for General Marshall in post war Europe - bringing his 15 year old daughter, Ann (Dave's Mom) with him to Paris.

Jack Holcombe (Dave's grandfather) may well have had a hand in creating this harbor at Omaha Beach -- he was certainly here.

As the sun was setting and the temperature dropping (3-4°c or about 37-38°f) we went out to Longue-sur-Mer where there still exists a row of about 6 German gun emplacements. (There are still concrete blockhouses and gun emplacements all along the coast here). The first one you come to is almost totally smashed, with the gun itself blow-out and twisted metal. But as you walk along you come to several that are almost entirely intact, with the huge guns rusting in place as they were....eery.

And yet another........

Later, we went out to a pub called "Pub Fiction" where we found a band called "Le Moutarde Me Monte Au Nez". Very 60's like with tight pop harmonies. Lots of energy and they were clearly having fun. More reminiscent of British pop (read early Beatles) than french.

Le Moutarde Me Monte Au Nez - in action

They were so cute, they just about deserve their own page here. We talked to them during the break (as much as we could -- our french is getting better, but still....) and they asked Dave to get up and play with them towards the end of the evening. For those of you with patience, you can download a movie clip of "Moutarde" playing by clicking here, or another of Dave playing with them by clicking here.

Dave in Action [Note the slicked back hair on Dave- it's actually in a ponytail! Where it sometimes even stays...if not, we get the Einstein look, but luckily pretty much anything seems to go - hairstyle wise - here in France]

Those of you who take the time to listen might notice that Dave keeps pausing waiting for someone to take a lead, or sing or something, but they just kept on playing backup. Went over well with the crowd though.... they started clapping and dancing and carrying on.

Caen and Utah Beach

Sunday morning we drove through frost covered fields into the town of Caen (pronounced "Khan" more or less), to visit the memorial museum there.

Much of the old town of Caen was pretty much flattened by allied bombing during the war. One of the things that I learned during the museum visit is just how many towns and villages were destroyed in this part of France - mostly by allied bombardment. Somehow we never seem to talk about that part of the war much. But the french, bless them, faced this with a "it had to be done" attitude and there is no trace of resentment.

More than 30000 military were lost in the first 18 days of fighting in from the beaches - and perhaps 15-20,000 civilians, and the allies had only advanced 7 miles inland.  It took more than a month to recapture Caen which was finally recaptured only about 5 days before the liberation of Paris.

The museum is very moving, with a focus on personal experience rather than tactics.

We drove out to Utah Beach that evening (about an hour from Caen). The museum there was built by a man who had been mayor of the local village (St Marie du Don) for 50(!) years. He'd actually been wounded by accident by the Americans during the invasion.

Landing Craft and rusting tank traps at the Utah Beach Museum.

The museum itself was a little hokey, but there were some very touching comments from french visitors in the guest book - still expressing gratitude to those that died.

The next morning we visited Omaha Beach - another now tranquil stretch of sand still overlooked by concrete bunkers and gun emplacements among the creperies and post-war beach houses.

We walked less than 10 minutes up the hill to the little village of Vierville. It took the US forces about 5 hours of fighting to get there.

We decided to forgo the cemeteries.  The silence of the beaches was enough.

Travel Data:

Hotel in Bayeux:

Hotel D'Argouges (Large double about 80 euro). Nice bathrooms, our room had a great tub! Petit Dejeuner (13 euro for two) in a very pretty room overlooking the back garden.

Restaurants:

Brasserie de Paris. Very friendly brasserie style restaurant just two doors down from the hotel (on the Place St. Patrice). Best Steack Tartare so far in France, according to Dave. I had Cote de Veau Norman (veal chop in a mushroom and cream sauce, yum).

The Brasserie de Paris in Bayeux

Le Pommier. Right by the catherdral on Rue Des Cuisiniers(!?). Very good classic Norman specialties, very cozy with excellent friendly service. We sat in front of the fireplace, on a pretty cold night! Our "first date" (at a restaurant was at La Pommerie on the Gravenstein Hwy (Hwy 116)in between Cotati and Sebastopol in Northern California some 28 years ago...french of course. So we just had to go to this one! Met another American couple there - also sent by the Hotel Argouges. The first Americans that we have met in weeks and weeks!

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