First stop this morning was the Museum of the Battle of Normandy. Thursday and Friday I will be touring the Utah and Omaha beach D-Day landing sites, where the American troops came ashore. The Museum of the Battleground of Normandy covers D-Day on all five beaches, Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword and the fighting after D-Day that drove the Germans out of Normandy.
The museum had an excellent display of equipment on the grounds outside the entrance.
This is a German tank destroyer called a Hetzer.This a German twin mounted 105 millimeter gun that was placed in a concrete casemate on Omaha Beach.This is a Canadian built assault tank called a Grizzly.
I got into the museum using a ticket my Airbnb host gave me. This morning he stopped by to see how I was doing and brought clean towels. He also invited me to help myself to the beer in the fridge, no charge, and insisted on taking me to the train station Saturday morning. What a nice guy.
This is a map of the entire D-Day operation.D-Day was a massive operation.This is a Bofors 40 millimeter antiaircraft gun. It was designed by a Swedish company and manufactured in the United States under a licensing agreement. This gun is so well designed that it is still being manufactured and used today.This is the German MG 42 machine gun. It is reputed to be the best machine gun used in WW II. It is so well designed that NATO forces still use it as the primary machine gun in their arsenal.A quad mounted 50 caliber machine gun. This is the German Flak 88. It is reputed to be the best antiaircraft gun of WW II.
Did you know that Ernest Hemingway was a war correspondent in WW II?
Hemingway participated in the D-Day landings at Omaha Beach. Andy Rooney was also a war correspondent during WW II. He wasn’t just a grumpy old man on 60 Minutes.This is the gift shop. You can’t get out of a museum or tourist attraction in France without going through the gift shop.Did you know that there was a K-9 contingent to the airborne troops that dropped on D-Day? This is a tribute to Private Emile Corteil and his dog Glen who parachuted behind German lines on D-Day. They were both killed and buried together with full military honors.
After I finished at the museum I rushed to make my 1:00 o’clock lunch reservation. All the nice restaurants in Bayeux are reservation only and book well in advance for dinner. I did get a reservation for lunch at this place.
I don’t think I can handle a full gastronomic experience without Sara’s assistance so semi-gastronomic will probably be about as much as I can handle by myself. Elegance and gluttony! What a strange combination. I hope this restaurant is light on the elegance and heavy on the gluttony.It looks good from the outside.I started out with a glass of Chardonnay and a shot glass of gazpacho. Not even close to gluttony.Second course was a salad of creamed lentils with smoked salmon topped with a sesame vinaigrette and parmesan crumbles. Delicious but not gluttonous. Third course was roast filet of cod with smoked bacon and a curry sauce accompanied by puréed vegetables. Very good but I am still waiting to see the gluttony side of this meal.Fourth course was a chocolate and nut cake with whipped cream and a peanut butter coulis. I had to look that one up. A coulis is a puree. Why not just say puree instead of coulis?Fifth and last course. This was a test. It is a meringue and the chef made me guess what spice was in the meringue. I guessed butterscotch. The correct answer was cinnamon. I guess I failed the taste test but the chef failed the gluttony test. He said the reference to gluttony on the website was tongue in cheek. He told me that I could do gluttony when I got back to the United States. All in all it was an amazing meal.
After my two hour lunch I went across the street to explore the Cathedral.
This is the front of the Cathedral. The original Cathedral was built in a Romanesque style. Most of the original Cathedral was lost in a fire but the front of the original Cathedral was saved. The Cathedral was rebuilt, keeping the Romanesque front entry but switching to a more ornate Gothic style for construction of the new parts of the rebuilt Cathedral.This is the Gothic part of the rebuilt Cathedral.The dome of the rebuilt Cathedral was stone and started collapsing in the 1870’s. The Church removed the stone dome and replaced it with a copper dome.The inside of the Cathedral.A tribute to the one million British soldiers who died during WW I.
The stained glass windows are amazing.
Magnificent stained glass windows.This is the altar.They even have a little Botofumiero, or swinging incense burner, like the one they have at the Cathedral in Santiago.
That’s it from Bayeux. I hope you are having a wonderful day wherever you are.
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.
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AbeAndMarkontheCamino 