Miscellaneous Tidbits

Interestingly enough, I decided to wake up this morning at 4:45 AM for no good reason at all, and I can't go back to sleep. So I thought I'd make a list of some random little tidbits that haven't made it into my blog so far. You might find them interesting, and if not, at least I'll have them written down in my digital scrapbook. In no specific order:

0. We named the GPS voice on our car Emma because she sounds like the actress Emma Thompson. So we have a lovely little British voice guiding us around the country! :-)

1. Music - The radio station we've been listening to in the car has a very interesting mix of American, British, and French music. I think we've heard every single Pink, Katy Perry, and Bruno Mars song ever written as well as some very funky British and French dance music! :-) And the music we often hear playing in restaurants is a totally random mix of Abba, the BeeGees, French language music, Celine Dion (in French), and other 60s and 70s American music (not necessarily the good stuff)! :-)

2. I might've mentioned this before, but in Normandy, there were one or two WWII veterans at every place we went. They were like rock stars (and I mean that with the utmost respect) signing autographs. Lines would form in front of their chairs or wheelchairs and little kids to grown adults would have a scrap of paper signed or just shake their hands and chat with them. It was the most emotional and beautiful thing to see.

3. A few days ago we met a tour leader of a veteran's group in St. Mere Eglise who was born in Brewster, WA. And we found out that the superintendent of the American Cemetery above Omaha Beach was born and raised in Tacoma. Are you kidding me?!!! As weird as it sounds, that kind of thing happens on every single trip we take. It doesn't matter if we're in the U.S. or Europe, we always meet someone we know, or someone who knows someone we know, or someone who knows Wenatchee because they were born and raised somewhere in Eastern Washington. The world really is a small, interconnected place!

4. While in Normandy, we saw lots of French school kids on field trips and several of them had scarves or bags with American flags on them. VERY cool! (I think they were being sold in the little souvenir stores.)

5. At Arromanche for lunch, we sat at a table next to a 90 year old British veteran and his wife and chatted a bit. Then the next day we saw them again at our favorite little crepe shop in our home base of Bayeux, so Tammy secretly and generously paid for their drinks when we paid for our dinner. :-)

6. There have been groups of French and British school kids on field trips, as well as currently enlisted soldiers from several different countries at all the historical sites we've visited. We've actually seen quite a few German soldiers at most of the D-Day sites. I'm sure that's part of the way they're trying to come to terms with what their country did.

7. In every Norman town we've seen, there are street names like Rue 2nd Division Indian Head, Churchill Boulevard, Rue 6th of June, Eisenhower Roundabout, etc. It's the coolest thing ever!

8. Also, in every town we've seen French, British and American flags flying everywhere - even on private homes. In fact yesterday, we were driving through this tiny little village to get to one of the abbeys, and a woman was in the process of hanging her large American Flag out her upper window so that it would fly right next to the smaller French flag already there. Again, I felt very proud to be an American!

9. The French really seem to love their dogs - lots of people walking dogs everywhere in the small towns. But they don't seem to be as in love with the idea of picking up after them, if you know what I mean. :-)

10. And the last random tidbit for the morning.....yesterday as we were checking out of our B&B in Bayeux, we walked up the street to our car and passed a fluffy French cat sitting in an open window. We'd passed him several times before and he was always very friendly. Sometimes he was sitting in the window, walking around on the sidewalk, or even lounged across the window sill sleeping in the sun. As we talked sweetly to him, his owner, a charming, silver-haired elderly woman, popped her head out the window as well and chatted us up in French for a couple of minutes. I assume she was agreeing with us about how beautiful her kitty was, but we couldn't understand a word of it! But she was happy and friendly, and it was clear that we all loved the little French chat (cat)! :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Light Day of Sightseeing

Today we sadly left Bayeux; it really has been the most beautiful little town! So off we went in our little car headed to Mont St. Michel which is about three hours away. On the way we stopped at two abbeys. The first one is called Cerisey-la-Foret Abbey. We got to see the outside of it, but they were having a Sunday service so we couldn't go in to tour the church itself. The church still functions, but the rest of the abbey doesn't, so you'll notice some broken walls and other deteriorating buildings attached to the church itself.

The picture to the left shows the view from the abbey to a beautiful chateau across the pond. Very picturesque!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we headed to the historic Hambye Abbey. It's a 12th century abbey that is now in ruins. It could no longer support itself starting sometime in the Middle Ages and it was closed completely and quarried for its stone right before the French Revolution. Luckily, a doctor and his wife bought the property in the mid 1900s and it's been turned into a historic site.

 

If you love ruins like we do, then you would think this is a pretty amazing place. It's the most melancholy and yet fantastic thing to stand in a big, beautiful church and have grass under your feet instead of stone and sky and clouds above instead of a vaulted ceiling. We wandered all around, in and out, for about an hour. There are a few other monastical buildings there from when the monks actually lived in the abbey complex, but they all kind of looked the same so I only included pictures of one or two.

 

 

 

 

One of the first things we noticed was that all of the stone columns had tons of graffiti scratched into them. My first reaction was to be disgusted (I think graffiti is abhorrent), but then I looked closer and noticed that a lot of the names had dates next to them and the dates were from the 1800s! That's made the graffiti a little more acceptable; in fact, it made it kind of cool! Anything old is good in my book! :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one is Alfred somebody from1853. And the one below is Ed. Thomasse from 1801! Pretty interesting to me that people were scratching their names into stone walls 200+ years ago.

 

 

 

The one to the left is kind of hard to read, but we think it says Paul Bernard 1944. It looks like "Pig" but the ig is actually a 19 and then the 44 sort of looks like lightning bolts. So I don't know if it was a soldier or who it was, but I'm sure they were living through the torment of WWII just like everyone else in this part of France.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The picture to the right is of a couple of other monastical buildings. Beautiful little stone cottage-like buildings.

 

 

 

After that ruined abbey, we headed to the mont! Mont St. Michel is an island with a tiny village located at the foot of a huge monastery located on the top of the rock (mount). It has been a pilgrimage site since 708 A.D. when a bishop "heard the voice of Archangel Michael" (Michel) telling him to build on the mount. The history of the monastery was recorded in official church documents until they were taken to St. Lo for safety during WWII. If you know about St. Lo, it was not a pretty ending. The whole town was pretty much leveled, taking with it most of the 1200 years of historical record about Mont St. Michel.

To reach the island you have to park on the mainland in parking lots that remind me of the parking for a a huge U.S. stadium because so many tourists come here daily. (It's the third most visited site in France.). Then an efficient shuttle picked us up and took us across the causeway and within a few hundred feet of the seawall surrounding the lower part of the village. (The picture to the right shows people walking up the very end of the causeway, and you can see the seawall in the distance at the bottom of the cluster of buildings.)

 

At that point we started walking up the only road in town, and it's all of about 10 feet wide (no cars allowed on the mont). It's a bit of a claustrophobic feeling because both sides of the narrow road are crammed full of tourist shops selling t-shirts, postcards, and every other souvenir you can think of. It really is very tacky for a sight that looks so beautiful when gazing up at the abbey from across the water. But according to the guidebooks, the street has been full of tacky shops since the place opened in the 8th century. Only for the first thousand years or so they were selling to religious pilgrims. Now they're selling to tourists from all over the world. (It's a big draw for Japanese tourists, especially.)

 

 

To give you an idea of how high up on the hill the abbey is located, it takes about 20 minutes of steady walking to get from the main entry gate at the bottom of the one street in the village to the lower level of the abbey where you buy the entry tickets. Then it seems there are more stairs inside to take you up to the church itself. We got here too late in the day to see the inside of the church, but we did hike up to it just so we could take in the gorgeous views of the surrounding tidal basin and walk the ramparts for a bit. (I'm sure I'm going to be quite sore tomorrow!). :-) Tammy made it to the top, gimpy knees and all. She was very proud of herself! I read on the internet that it's 900 steps from the bottom of the street to the entrance to the abbey, but I don't know if that's true. I'll count them tomorrow when we head up there again!

Tomorrow will be another light day. We'll leave the mont as soon as we see the abbey and drive all the way to Albert (about five hours away), stopping along the way to see a couple quick sights. Here's my last attempt at an artistic pic of the mont as seen from the causeway.

 

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