Go West young man (and woman)!

As is usual with our trips, detailed planning is left until the last moments before departure, and sometimes, as with this trip, until we are actually on the boat. And so it was that we came to the decision to head towards Brittany, somewhere we’d not travelled together yet. And, as we were headed there first, why not take in the Bayeux tapestry en-route?

So with Bayeux as our first planned destination, we headed off from Dieppe towards Rouen for our first overnighter at the (now familiar) Aire at Montville, a usually reliable stop for a late night arrival. Arriving not long before midnight, we were able to choose from three pitches that had been thoughtfully left for latecomers (or maybe because they were all at slightly odd, sloping angles)?

This Aire is popular as it’s not far off the main route south from Dieppe, it’s free, and the adjacent town has the usual range of bakery delights to tempt travellers newly arrived on the mainland! Montville also has the unusual distinction of being one of only about 30 towns in France where the relationship between church and state is vividly captured with some post-hoc embellishments on the outside of the church showing the authority of the Republic!

The drive over to Bayeux the next day was uneventful and the weather delivered on its now customary ‘welcome to northern France’ reproduction of the weather back home – cloudy with a promise of sun just around the corner…

Our second overnight stop was north of Bayeux at Arromanches-les-Bains on the coast, overlooking the remains of the Mulberry harbour from the D-day landings all along this stretch of coast. Perched at the top of the same cliffs that Allied service personnel had fought and died to capture after storming the beaches, the atmosphere was enhanced by the calm and misty sea just beneath us.

With time before settling in for the night to wander along the beaches that we had seen in so many grainy black and white Pathe newsreels of the Normandy landings, it was quite something to realise we were walking across the killing zone that had seen so many casualties. 75 years on, the beach is still peppered with bits of harbour that have washed ashore, adding to the atmosphere.

And to add to the sense of occasion, just as we were turning in for the night, the air suddenly started throbbing with the sound of heavy vehicles approaching, and a convoy of WW2 American vehicles rumbled past us in the dead of night…

Morning brought a change in the weather with bright sun and clear skies, and by the time we had surfaced, all of our immediate neighbours had left on their travels, leaving us in splendid isolation to enjoy the views.

Before we left Arromanches, it seemed appropriate to take in one of the memorials to the events of 6^th June 1944, and so it was we ended up in the nearby 360 degree cinema with its 19 minute film about the first 100 days of the liberation. The film, skilfully put together from original footage, is free from jingoism and very strong on the impact on the local civilian population; a moving tribute to the endeavours of so many people from more nations than you may be aware of, and a must if you are in the area.

As we headed south to Bayeux we just assumed we’d be able to park up near the museum that houses the tapestry…

We should of course have figured that the reason Bayeux has two Aires, is that camping cars are banned from all the other car parks, and many of the roads in the old town, as we found to our embarrassment as we tried to navigate our way back to the ring road to start again!

As it turned out, one Aire (free in the day) was a short walk to the museum and so we parked up and had our second historical adventure of the trip. Mrs B had seen the big carpet before, when it was housed in the amazing Cathedral, but the recent conversion of the nearby seminary to house the tapestry and its super modern multi lingual and automatic audio guide made it an amazing and informative experience.

Unfortunately no photos can be taken, and given the understandable high level of security in public places in France, we decided to include our own short version…

After wandering briefly around the picturesque town, we headed back to the van to go and seek provisions for our next leg of the journey; into Brittany and the ancient pyramids of Carnac…

S&J