July 10, 2024
The brilliance of a European breakfast buffet cannot be overstated. Everything is yummy and mostly everything is some kind of bread. I focused on little cakes (?) that looked vaguely like submarines today, but I didn’t let the chocolate croissants go untried. The crepes were delicious with no topping at all. The odd-looking scrambled eggs were so good, I went back several times (okay, three times, but my helpings were small). I thought the coffee maker was a jukebox at first.
Our tour guide, Katherine, has the charming French way of pronouncing many English words with the emphasis on the wrong syllable. It is sometimes tricky to figure out the word, and nearly always funny. I will add a few phonetic guides to try to let you play along.
Our first stop was at Pointe du Hoc, a promontory (proMONtory) that army rangers were tasked with climbing on D Day morning. Their grappling hooks had gotten wet, and the rope was too heavy and they just fell to the ground. They ended up using their daggers to climb the cliff. Only about 1/4 of the 421 of them survived the invasion. We looked at the bunkers that had housed long guns. Some had been moved only days before, since Hitler was sure the Allies (uhLIES) were going to attack to the north. The thing I could not help noticing was the huge number of pits in the ground from bombs. Katherine talked about the obstacles (obSTACKles) the US faced. As we walked back to the bus, she told us about the ceremony (cerONomy) that would come next.
We saw an interesting looking bird on a post and like all good tourists, everyone was busy taking its picture. What is it? What is it? What is it? Someone suggested a kind of pigeon, someone else tried a something else, but I said it was a French hen and everyone was satisfied. 🙂
I yelled Smile when the truck was being unloaded. Thank heavens for Jenny!
We went to the American Cemetery next. They said that years ago, only Americans came here, but now, given video such as Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, attendance from people around the world has dramatically increased. You really can’t help being impacted by either of those productions – as realistic as anyone would care to experience the horror and the victory of war.
The four veterans in our group were invited to lay a wreath at the memorial before the band played a solemn program. It was very touching, and definitely the high point of the trip for many members of our party. I noticed that the two men mowing the grass (quite a distance away, but still audible) stopped and stood and listened during our Nation Anthem and Taps. I guess of course they have been trained to do it, but it really felt respectful.
Speaking of respectful, I noticed something about myself today. When I walked over to the grave markers and looked out at that sea of crosses and stars, under the United States flag, I remembered being in that same spot ten years ago. Ten years ago, I was bursting with pride. What I had learned about D Day prior to that day was that it was a brilliant strategic victory that led to the end of the war. I had not really learned about the huge cost of lives. I was living in my 2014 world of Barack Obama and the bright future. Today, I looked at the flag without emotion, no longer prideful of such a divided, angry country that flag represents. Being here today, thinking back on the horror of the Third Reich, scares me to imagine what could happen in the coming months.
Luckily, I had to stop thinking that way because the concert was about to begin. Most of the people anywhere in the area came to listen when the music started. Unfortunately, there were no chairs set up for audience, so after a song or two or three (there were only eight) most people moved on. That is fine (of course). I think they could still hear as they wandered around.
We visited Omaha beach and tried both to imagine and yet not imagine the carnage bought upon the thousands of men rushing onto the beach by the 60 pillboxes of machine guns trained on them from the cliffs above. We stopped to look at the beautiful memorial art, Waves.
We had lunch in the town of Arromanche. It is closer to the English landing beaches and has a definite “little England” tang to it. We had fish and chips for lunch (accordingly) and shopped around a bit and looked at the remnant of the harbor that the uhLIES had built to support their invasion in the ocean. (Yes, Keith, English Channel. It touches the ocean and I don’t see a line or anything, so I am just saying ocean.) We found fans, and got one to replace Jenny’s broken one and one for me, because I am always hot. We did NOT buy the Jellycat Sandcastle that I saw in a window and love so much.
We bussed back and enjoyed General Eisenhower in the middle of one roundabout and some knights in the middle of another. There also were pink, blue, and purple hydrangeas everywhere today.
Back in Bayeux, we visited the Bayeux Tapestry. I have heard of it before, but really knew nothing about it. The Duke/Governor/Cardinal/Somebody of Bayeux was the brother-in-law (half brother?) (obviously, I still don’t know a lot about it) of William the Conqueror and he commissioned somebody (no one knows who) to embroider the story of William on a verrrrrry long piece of cloth. It is about a meter tall and 70 meters long (70 METERS) (that wasn’t about pronouncing, but about wow). They give you an audio guide and there are labels to the 58 sections or story parts and the audio tells you the story, pointing out details you would never notice, like Someone was surprised by the attack because he didn’t have his shoes on or that everyone was so happy that even the horses were laughing. I would like to point out that the audio gives you info on some of the great detail, but someone had thought TO DO those great details. The story is about King Edward of England telling Harold to go tell William (known as William the Bastard at that time. He really traded up on the nickname) in France that he should inherit the kingship because Edward had no children. Harold went, but he didn’t quite do the whole job and got kidnapped and other stuff, and then he went back to England and Edward died and Harold said, Oh, look, I will be king of England. William did not think that was okay, so we gathered the guys and they went over and had the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066, and killed Harold (arrow to the eye) (I don’t know if William personally did that arrow firing or not. I don’t think so. There was something about someone not being allowed to draw blood, but they were allowed to bludgeon people, and I think that was William. The story got very exciting there for a bit and not all the details stayed with me). Then William was king of England and everyone, even the horses, was happy. The embroidery is almost a thousand (THOUSAND) years old. What? The drawings are pretty flat looking, but detailed! and embroidered in a really complicated way! and there are so many! What an amazing thing to see. Wow. Stacy thought they should have a postcard that pulled out to be really long – and she found one!
On to the local cathedral. They let us into the crypt. That was a first. Stacy thought it was creepy. We thought it was for bodies, or preparing bodies, but then we read it was for storing super holy items. Didn’t seem creepy then.
A lot of the shop windows in town have cartoon D Day art. I was taking a picture of one such storefront and Keith said, “Look, Mel, is in there, eating something (turned out to be escargot).” I yelled Smile! and he so beautifully raised his glass to me. I love this picture.
We had pizza for dinner – really good. John and Sonya had a charcuterie board. Becky and Sally were eating with strangers – turns out her mom was a war bride from England and her aunt stayed in England, so she has first cousins in England. One of them brought her camper over on the ferry and is camping out in order to come to the concert tomorrow night. Turns out they weren’t strangers at all.
Speaking of the concert, I saw a poster in the barbershop window. I told Keith to look. Loook. Looooook. He couldn’t spot anything other than the cartoon man.
Is Destockage a word in French?
Rolling along through the French countryside you see things like this fairly often. It’s really nice.
