Monday, September 16, 2024 – Bayeux walking tour and the Bayeux Tapestry.

Travel Blog 3 Minutes

Today is my first full day in Bayeux so I scheduled a guided walking tour to help me get the lay of the land.

This is Christele. She runs Discovery Walks Bayeux and she was the guide on today’s group walking tour.
If you are ever in Bayeux I highly recommend this walking tour.
We started at the tourist office. During WW II this building was used as a rest area for American soldiers that landed on Utah and Omaha beaches. The soldiers were given a hot meal and a shower and then were ordered to proceed to Caen. Prior to D-Day Bayeux was not bombed by the Allies because there were no German combat troops in the town. After the American soldiers were done with their hot meals and showers they spent the next couple of days drinking their way through all the liquor in Bayeux’s bars and restaurants before they finally made it to Caen.
Look closely and you can see seven bullet holes in the side of this building. That is the only damage done to Bayeux during WW II.
The River Aure flows through Bayeux.
Another shot of the River Aure.
During medieval times the river provided the power for Bayeux’s three main industries, leather tanning, grist mills and dye manufacturing.

In order to tan leather the folks in Bayeux would soak the cow hides in crushed oak bark chips and urine. If you were poor you would sell your urine to the tannery and you would be labeled “piss poor.” If you were so poor that you didn’t have a container to collect your urine and take to the tannery you would go to the tannery and use one of their containers. These people were so poor they “didn’t have a pot to piss in.”

This is the door to the hospital where infants born out of wedlock were dropped off anonymously.
This is a statue of Mary near the unwed mother’s door. Every baby that was dropped off at this door would be cared for and each and every one of these babies would be given the surname Mary or Marie in French. Marie is the most common surname in the Bayeux phone book.
This is the Bayeux Liberty Tree. Seven thousand of these Liberty Trees were planted during the French Revolution. Most of the Liberty Trees were chopped down when the monarchy was restored. Only seventy Liberty Trees remain in France and Bayeux has one.
This is the Bayeux Cathedral. I will be touring it on Wednesday and I will discuss it in detail in Wednesday’s blog.
Another shot of the Cathedral.
Bayeux is the first town Charles de Gaulle visited when he returned to France a week after D-Day. People in Bayeux love Charles de Gaulle.

We walked around Bayeux for two and a half hours and it was a very informative tour. After all that walking around I was tired and hungry.

Lunch was a pita stuffed with falafel and veggies and fries and a Coke.

After lunch it was off to the Bayeux Tapestry Museum.

Bayeux Tapestry Museum.

They have a strict no pictures policy inside the part of the museum where you view the tapestry so this part of the blog will not have many pictures.

The Bayeux Tapestry really isn’t a tapestry, it is an embroidery. It is 230 feet long and 20 inches tall. It tells the following story.

In 1064 Edward the Confessor was the King of England. He had a cousin, William the Bastard, who was the Duke of Normandy. Edward did not have an heir so he decided that when he died William would be King of England. Edward sent his brother in law, Harold, to Normandy to tell William the good news. William made Harold swear an oath of loyalty to him. Soon after Harold returned to England King Edward died and Harlod crowned himself King.

William was hopping mad about Harold’s treachery and led a Norman army to England and defeated Harold’s Anglo Saxon army at the Battle of Hastings. William was crowned King of England and changed his name from William the Bastard to William the Conquerer. The Tapestry is flat out amazing!

A little background on the Tapestry.
After touring the Tapestry Museum I visited the grocery store. Dinner back at my Airbnb was a salami and cheese sandwich with olives and chips and a beer. Delicious!

That’s it from Bayeux. Tomorrow I go on a guided tour to Mont Saint-Michel. I hope you are having a great day wherever you are.

Unknown's avatar

Published by abeandmarkonthecamino

I've been retired from the Union Pacific Railroad since 2017. I've been planning to walk the Camino for about 6 months and can't wait to get started.

Published

Leave a comment