July 4th Sunday Bayeux to Paris

I’m starting today’s diary on the train between Bayeux and Paris, hurtling along to our final, but very exciting destination. We’ve had a wonderful day in and around Bayeux, Caen and the Normandy Beaches today.
Popped into town after breakfast with a visit to see the Bayeux Tapestry top of my list. With Summer and the school holidays having started here and the festival bringing crowds of participants and onlookers to town, the tourist season is well underway and we were pleased to be early enough to miss the huge queue we saw later. Some information I read about the tapestry describes it as a “comic strip” which was displayed to tell the people of the time the events of the Norman Conquest. That’s a really good description in a way as the amazing work tells the story in pictures so well, with incredible detail such as posture and expression portraying even little nuances of deception, embarrassment, excitement, etc; remarkable! The complimentary audio guide was fantastic; explaining how the tapestry is telling the story and pointing out the significance of quirky little things you could easily miss. 70 metres takes on a whole new meaning when you see it telling a story in 57 consecutive scenes stitched 1000 years ago in wool on linen and the colours still as good as new.
On our exit from the Tapestry display we struck a real bonus, being just in time to watch the medieval parade, one of the highlights of the annual festival. It was along the lines of Nelson’s Mask Parade, with community groups taking part dressed in all manner of medieval costumes and regalia and with plenty of lively music and slapstick humour. (I think you would have liked dressing up to be part of this parade Yasmina, Andre, Isabelle and Hannah – lots of princesses and knights!)
You couldn’t come to Bayeux without taking a trip out to the D Day Beaches to get a picture of the location and the area involved and try to get some idea of the scale and magnitude of the operation and the human cost involved, so that was our tour for the afternoon and now, here we are having fare welled Bruce and Diana again and speeding toward Paris for our next discoveries and adventures.
Later Sunday:
An interesting trip on the train with lots of Parisienne families with little children returning from a weekend out of town, mixing formula, heating baby food (the trains have electric plugs available) and trying to keep tired scratchy toddlers calm. I've never seen so many children with dummies as over here, in fact it's unusual to see any baby or toddler in a buggy without a dummy!
Countryside gave way to urban views and suddenly we were at the seething station, dragging our bags to the ticket office for Metro tickets. We've seen a few armed police around in both Italy and France so it wasn't too much suprise to see police here with holsters strapped on, but we did wonder why there needed to be the stoneyfaced swivel headed ones slinking about with their AK47s. Anyway, no worries for us so, with a 5 day pass in hand, a call to our hotel for connection instructions and we were diving into the underground. Everyone had told us how efficient and user friendly the Paris Metro is and we would certainly agree. With one change we were at our hotel and checked in to our room.
Our hotel is old and very French - dark and mysterious with dark wood, wild pink, red and gold decor and furnishings, but comfy and superbly located in the Hotel de Ville area just across the Seine from the Notre Dame. Popping next door for a beer and glass of wine to celebrate our arrival was an expensive exercise costing E14.70 so needless to say we moved further away for dinner! I had a fried camembert which was fabulous and Fred is going to recreate his dish for lunch next time you come Em as it was a magnificent French version of cheese on toast and you two are the cheese on toast makers!