16 April

Today was a sleep-in of sorts, although I find that I wake about 5 no matter what – it is just whether I can get back to sleep, and today was one day when I could not. The view out the window is of trees in blossom – spring has sprung!
Eventually I rose at 7:30 and despite taking time preparing, I was still down at 7:55 and found the dining room open. I selected a table for one, on the assumption all the others were together in one way or another. There is a photo of the prepared table in today’s pictures.
After working my way through part of my breakfast (and having Vegemite on a roll), I gave up and had to call it quits and went up to my room to finish preparing. I did find out the farmhouse is over four hundred years old. Only one other person, also on their own, was down to breakfast before I left.
I headed into Bayeux and decided I would see the tapestry. Finding where it was was no problem, but finding a parking spot where the car didn’t look as if it would be a casualty to the first delivery van was. I eventually found one and walked back to the museum where the tapestry is housed. I paid for my entry and the girl asked in English what my nationality was. I asked what gave me away, as I spoke to her in French and she said the terrible accent. Ah well, I suppose over forty years since I did French must mean my accent has not got better.
The tapestry itself is a wonder, huge (over seventy metres long and about half a metre high) and a record of someone’s view of history at the time. It is a very detailed work and only by protecting it from light will it survive (hence no photography). It took me nearly twenty minutes to walk along it, listening to a recorded summary of the contents. Then there was a museum with further explanation and models, and finally a video with more explanation, alternating between French and English. In the cinema I met a Canadian couple, he from Vancouver and her from England.
After the video I went out and found myself in school groups, some English, some French. By the comments and actions, many of them seemed that, like for any school excursion, they were going to show they were bored and didn’t want to be there. However, given the nature and significance of it, I think it was mostly show.
Walking back to the car, I saw a waterwheel still turning. I called into the cathedral and looked around there, as the tapestry, during some stages of its life, was regularly shown by hanging it around the inside of the cathedral. It was a magnificent building, but I suppose if I was giving advice on cathedral viewing, it would be to see Amiens last, as otherwise all others are going to seem lesser buildings.
In the car I headed off to Cherbourg. Once there, it was a city bustling and getting ready for the influx of tourists and holiday-makers. The fortifications in the harbour were very visible, but they are so large and extensive that to photograph them really is a video task.
I headed up to the coast and called into a bay (whose name at the moment I cannot recall). Here the evidence of German emplacements was still very visible, as was the erosion in the cliffs. I helped a girl who dropped picnic supplies (the group had just had lunch, while I was still munching on yesterday’s baguette) and found out she was with geology students observing the cliffs and their structure. She spoke excellent English and was very interested to know where I was from in Australia.
I was still on my way down to the beach when I spoke to a couple from England. There were elderly and driving a right-hand-drive car. The wife doesn’t drive and didn’t like seeing the cars so close, but the husband was used to it. I found out from them that the island visible only a short distance away was Alderney, one of the Channel Islands (British). Then I managed to make my way down and got some interesting views. Coming back there were two families with three small children (remember it’s school holidays here). The parents were trying to stop the children from playing in a small stream – faint hope!
I went further up the cliff and got some other shots of the beach (they are little bays, indented as along any coastline, with headlands separating them, but some beaches are pebbles while some are sand), then headed off to the capes. Here it was a reasonable walk but beautiful views.
I headed back along the coast, wanting to see a sample of the Normandy landing beaches. I called in at Grandcamp-Maisy and got information from the Tourist Bureau, including detailed maps of the beaches area, an explanation of “Rappell” on speed signs (“continued”) and yet another comment on my poor French and the guide spoke only in English to me. When he heard I was Australian, he got further information out for me (which means a bigger postage bill home). In the town, the arrows on the road said one thing, but I was able to drive down the beachfront (but not once the tourist season starts). I looked at Utah Beach, and the reason for choosing it was obvious – most other places were small or rocky, but this was expansive, flat and sandy. After that it was to the American Rangers memorial at Pointe Du Hoc. The defences are still there, though most are blown apart, and the shell holes are huge. It is difficult to imagine scaling cliffs even today, and trying to take the position, but it was done.
I went on to Omaha Beach. It seems incongruous to have such names in the French coastal areas, but I suppose it is a way of remembering each day what happened. Omaha Beach is a long and wide expanse of sand, and while ideal for landing, it also was ideal for defending, with high vantage points from which to shoot with impunity.
By this stage I was sort of “warred” out, so I set a course for McDonald’s in Bayeux, a contradiction if ever there was one. But I was desperate for Internet, and one has needs one has to fulfil. Once in there I ordered my meal (with my self-confidence getting yet another blow when after two words in French, the girl on the counter spoke to me in English) and set up the laptop, uploading all the pictures, my two blogs, checking and answering my email (I got a very nice reply from the family I met at Pozieres), finding out where I could cash my Amex cheques (the Post Office, apparently) and the current rate of exchange (about A$1 to €0,5318, so my Big Mac meal at €6,20 cost me over A$10).
Then it was back to my lodgings and as I pulled up, a little boy (different from yesterday’s) rushed up, opened the car door, looked at me, gulped and said “Pardon”, and then rushed away. He was obviously expecting someone and it wasn’t me. Then it was up to my room, set things up, transfer the photos from today over, try and back some up to DVD (I’m running out of room again, but I now need more DVDs), write today’s blog and then get to bed.

Some other things I remembered today and had forgotten in the meantime were:
At the Newfoundland memorial, I asked one of the Canadian guides who spoke with a French accent why signs in Canada had Arretet on them, but here they had Stop. She said the Canadian was pure French, but that the French had given in.
Then I heard another Canadian, in answer to a question (she was bilingual), say that when she spoke in French, she also thought in French – but when she spoke in English, she thought in English. I suppose that is what young children, who learn a number of languages at once while growing up, do without realising.
I have also now seen a farmhouse being built – of concrete brick, but skinned with old brick, so that when finished it will look old. I also have noticed many detached houses, on large blocks, just like in Australia. The problem is that they are taking productive farmland for these houses – again just like in Australia. When will priorities get sorted out?