D-Day beaches, thousand year old tapestries, and wet bicycle rides

Sarah in one of the craters made from artillery fire
the photo doesn't do it justice but its over 10ft deep.

This weekend has been one adventure after another as we started our Saturday off with heading to the
seaside of Normandy to Pointe du Hoc.  This was quite an incredible site as this was one of the first landing points of the June 6th D-Day invasion and it has been kept as close as possible to how it was after the invasion.  That means huge blast sites, broken bunkers and amazing cliffs that the allies would
have had to climb to overtake the position.  This area was critical to the success of the Normandy invasion as a large stash of artillery and guns were kept here.  Apparently the Germans didn't think that the allies would ever attack here because of the steep cliffs, but in the nearby museum you can see some of the neat things that the Allies used to climb the embankment.

The view from a German bunker that you could climb
inside as well as the cliff that the Allies climbed.

Next stop was lunch in a local cafe which was delightful and while my French is still quite limited it was fun to try to order and pay in French (and only received a little help in English from the waitress).  After lunch it was off to Omaha beach and the memorial and cemetery.

As you get closer to Omaha and Utah beach you see more and more American flags and, after watching some of the films in the memorial, it is quite neat that the local Normandy peoples still have a huge respect for the Allies and Americans because of the joint effort to win back the land.

one side of the tapestry which is
over 70 meters long!

The museum at Omaha was so neat with lots of information and notes from soldiers who were about to embark as well as all the info and planning leading up to it as well as all the secrets, fake paratroopers that were dropped in different positions to confuse the enemy and inflatable tanks used to create "fake armies" to further distract the Germans.  Sarah and I took a walk down to the beach just to see what it was like to look up at the bunkers and the hill that the Allies would have had to overcome.  It is quite the juxtaposition as if you look along the beach you see all the fun things you would expect at any beach but a quick look up reminds you of what happened here.

Sarah and I in Bayeux!

After a walk through the cemetery we changed eras by around 900 years and headed to Bayeux to look at the Bayeux tapestry, a tapestry that is near 1000 years old!  In 1066, William from Normandy (Guillaume le Conquerant) who was rightful heir to the throne as King of England had to leave Normandy to fight to win back the English throne and, after defeating Harold who broke an oath and claimed the throne as his own, he commissioned someone to make the tapestry which tells the entire story which was really fun and quite comical in parts.  The tapestry is 69 meters long and it was designed to wrap around the walls of a church to recount the story of conquest to illiterate people of the village!

We ended the night with a potato dinner and some card games before retiring for the evening and sleeping in until 11 this morning.  We decided to brave the rainy weather though and rode into Percy this morning to get some lotions and candy (my sweet tooth was uncontrollable) which is only about a ten minute ride.  All that is left today for now is getting dry and relaxing as paving resumes tomorrow!