Normandy

While we were in Normandy for the weekend, Jordan, David, and I decided to break up our WWII tour by also exploring Bayeux and then taking a trip to Mont St Michel.

Picturesque Bayeux

We had a full schedule on Friday afternoon, but we did manage to visit the Bayeux Tapestry Museum to see the 230-foot long embroidered cloth that tells the story of the Norman invasion of England in 1066.  William the Conqueror came to England to take the throne from his cousin, Harold, and succeeded.  The tapestry was commissioned shortly after to tell the tale, making it nearly 1,000 years old and still almost perfectly intact.

The museum is housed inside an old seminary

Before heading to Utah Beach, we took our time strolling through the cobblestoned streets of Bayeux.

The Bayeux Mill on the River Aure

Bayeux Cathedral

The moment that we saw this building, we were all thinking of the tavern that Gaston hangs out in in ‘Beauty and the Beast.’  We all started singing ‘Little Town’ and couldn’t get that song out of our heads for days. 

And of course, we ate really well in France!  For lunch, I had my favorite French snack – a ham and cheese baguette with butter, while the guys opted for mussels with cream sauce.  Normandy is known for its apple cider (alcoholic – like a refreshing beer), butter, caramels, and cheese so we made sure to eat a lot of each!

That evening, we had dinner at a traditional Norman restaurant in the shadow of the cathedral, L’assiette Normande. 

David and Jordan managed to eat a five-course dinner, while I could only handle four courses.  David started with escargot, while Jordan and I were not as brave and had French onion soup.  Then the guys had a palate cleanser of Calvados, the local apple brandy, mixed with apple sherbet.  I had whipped camembert with apples.  Our mains were an Andouille sausage casserole mixed with potatoes and cheese for me, steak for Jordan, and fish for David.  I have to say, the boys were very jealous when my bubbly, cheesy casserole dish came out to the table.  Then David and Jordan managed to each have a cheese plate before dessert – a sampler platter for David and Nutella coconut crème brûlée for Jordan and me.  It was such a delicious meal; each course was really well prepared and tasty.  It was a great dinner, and the perfect way to end our time in Bayeux.

Cathedral at night

On Saturday afternoon, after our tour with Francois, we headed to Mont St Michel.  And sure enough, we got lost again.  I gave up at that point and gave the maps to David… who didn’t do much better.

Eventually, we found the freeway and before long, we could see the mount across the fields.

Mont St Michel has a long history.  Originally just a small, 8^th century sanctuary, it eventually became a pilgrimage site and was later settled by Benedictine monks.  As the abbey and the village around it were built up, the mount became a stronghold.  The religious community was dissolved and during the French Revolution, the abbey was used as a prison.  Then in the 1960’s, the monks returned.  There are currently only a few dozen people living on the island.  We saw some nuns while we were there, but no monks.

I fell in love with the town immediately.  Mont St Michel was even better than I had imagined.  The town was so representative of a quaint French village that again, we all started singing from ‘Beauty and the Beast.’  There are cobblestone streets, a drawbridge, and ramparts circling the island. 

All of the shops, and even the post office, had these wrought-iron signs hanging outside their windows

For Saturday night, we had booked a room in one of the very few hotels on the mount.  We wanted to be able to see the island during both high and low tide, and without as many people in the evening after the tour buses leave.  The main, narrow cobblestone street was packed during the day, but at night, it was eerily quiet. 

Main street abandoned on Saturday evening

The employees at the mount were on strike when we got there, so they were offering free access and tours of the abbey.  We missed the last English tour, so we guided ourselves through the numerous halls and crypts and rooms.  The place was enormous!

After visiting the abbey, we left the island to take a walk on the beach.  I thought the beaches of Utah and Omaha were large in low-tide, but Mont St Michel takes it to a whole new level.  We felt like we were wandering in the desert, except that instead of sand, the beach was more like wet clay.  I was very doubtful (even though I’d seen numerous photos) that the tide would really come in from so far away and water would completely surround the mount.

Small chapel on the beach - the water levels are visible on the rocks

So that evening, we had a long dinner at the Mere Poulard Café to watch the waters rise.

Annette Poulard opened her inn on Mont St Michel in 1888, after the abbey ceased to be a revolutionary prison and re-opened to the public.  She earned the nickname of Mere Poulard, and became world-famous for her giant omelets and cookies.  Instead of eating in her original inn’s restaurant, we opted to eat at the outside café next to the ramparts so we could see the tide come in.

French boy outside the cafe watching the waters rise

We probably sat down to dinner around 8:00 and didn’t finish until 11:30.  It was a typical long, multi-course, European dinner made even longer by the fact that it took FOREVER for the waters to surround Mont St Michel.  The tide doesn’t really come rushing in as I had imagined, but instead, around 10:00 (when it’s finally starting to get dark) the waters of the various tiny rivers around the mount start to rise and swell, and eventually spread across the beach. 

And like we expected, by the time we got out of dinner, the town was empty.  Sunday was Bastille Day (French Independence Day), so at midnight, fireworks from shore started to go off and we were able to see them from the top of the abbey.

The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast of crepes at the hotel before setting off to Caen to catch our afternoon ferry.  We planned to leave at 11:00 to be in Caen by 1:00 at the latest (our ferry left at 2:00 and passengers with vehicles are required to check-in at the latest 45 minutes beforehand).  Well… by the time we got on the shuttle and back to our car in the parking lot off the island, it was exactly 11:50.  My Google directions stated that it takes 1 hour and 25 minutes to get to Caen, and given our track record of getting lost on the trip, we all started to panic!  A couple of years ago, David and I were 15 minutes late to our ferry to Calais and they didn’t let us on the ship.  We had to purchase another set of round-trip tickets to catch the next boat!  That COULD NOT happen again.

So when it really counted, David and I focused on the maps and Jordan drove fast (but not too fast!) and with a purpose… and we made it to the port’s check-in point at 1:12!  I think Jordan even took a picture of the clock on his dashboard, he was so relieved and yet incredulous that we had actually made it!

The ferry on the way home was a lot of fun.  The ship was outfitted with a variety of restaurants, cabins or reclining chairs, a sundeck, casino (which was just basically a few slot machines), and game/play rooms for the kiddos.  While we slept the whole way to France, the return journey was a day-trip so we hung out on deck, working on our tans (or in Jordan’s case, burning the tops of his legs and knees to a crisp).  There are also a couple of movie theatres on the ferries, so we watched ‘The Internship’ which was basically a terrible, 2-hour Google ad.  But it was a great way to travel and we all agreed that we should do it more often.  With the great, sunny weather and unbelievably warm temperatures, it beat sitting in airports and on planes for hours!

Au revoir, France!