Mike Jutan's World: Bayeux tapestry, D-Day beaches, and Canada's part in WWII

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Bayeux tapestry, D-Day beaches, and Canada's part in WWII

For the last couple of days, Ans and I have been in the town of Bayeux, a small town on the Normandy coast. Bayeux is one of the only towns that was not bombed at all during the WWII strikes, and so it stands now just as it did in those days. Caen, on the other hand, was mostly demolished by WWII bombings and has subsequently been rebuilt.

We had a GREAAAAT time in Bayeux. It was so awesome and a radical change from Paris. We got a 2-bed private room with a TV... wait for it... AND A PRIVATE BATHROOM AND SHOWER for only 2 Euros 50 cents more than what we were paying in Paris!! Glorious!! So that was great. But first, on the train on the way to Bayeux we were chillin' in a cabin with a dude from Morocco who knew hardly any English. So Ans and I spoke to him in French for 2 and a half hours!! We were actually quite impressed with ourselves and it was pretty darn awesome that we were able to chat so long "en Francais!!" Of course we tripped over our words a lot, but man it was great. So after that, we got to Bayeux and dropped off our stuff. Then we headed to the Bayeux Tapestry. This is a really cool tapestry that was created in... wait for it... the year 1077 or so!! It depicts the events leading up to the Norman invasion of England in 1066. It was for common people to see as well as nobles I believe, and they said that it has minimal writing and lots of pictures on it since the common people in general could not read. So this is sort of like an olden-days movie!! Very cool stuff and it was insane to see something that is 1000 years old. Crazy!!

After this Ans and I wanted to check out other stuff or get some more passisseries from the hot lady at the patesserie place. How come everyone is attractive in France?!!??!! We have really noticed that people are much better "kept" than North Americans over here, there are many people who are in very good shape and we have not seen much obesity here really at all. People seem to walk a lot and probably eat a lot less than North Americans. I think we can learn some lessons from France!! Either way, the patisserie store was totally closed. It was a holiday (V.E. Day) and everything closed early. So Ans and I wandered the streets of this tiny town, and eventually found a McDonalds. Everything else was closed and we couldn't find Wine anywhere so Ans bought a Beer at McDonalds!!!!!! Yes, they serve Beer at McDonalds in France.

We chilled at the hotel and then the next morning we got some awesome patisseries and then headed to Juno Beach, the place where the Canadian troops landed during D-Day. It was very intense to be there and to imagine how many people landed there and how people faught against the Nazis and set the French people (and eventually the rest of Europe) free from the Nazis. Pretty intense stuff. It was very cool to be there and there is a new center called the Juno Beach Center and there was lots of cool info there.

Last night Ans and I got a fancy dinner at an awesome place in Bayeux. Then this morning we headed out, back to Paris and we are now in Bordeaux on the South West of France in the Wine Country area. Awesome!! Ok now for the photos.