24/7 - Bayeux
I never took the contacts of people at youth hostels, but one person took mine. Maybe I'll hear from her in 10 years when she visits Singapore.
Admission to the tapistery was €7,60 for adults but €3 for students. No wonder there's a big market for fake ISIC cards.
The tapistery (where they kept the Bayeux tapestry) was really silly. They had lots of moronic writeups, like so:
A stupid writeup glorifying the French: "Guy behaved properly: neither drawn by the lure of a reward nor compelled by force, he came himself to the castle of EU, and brought before the Duke a man whom he was at liberty to torture, slit the throat of or sell"
On William and friends attacking Conan of Brittany: "Conan, the Count of Brittany, who refused the protectorate of Normandy, had actually risen up against Duke William. Renewing his father's rebellion, [Conan] memta (?) be the enemy, not the vassal, of Normandy.
Yes, the underlines were in the original writeups. Maybe they took a leaf from Wo-hen's webpage.
"William made Harold a Knight
The Duke was indeed very much aware that chivalry did not exist in England. No doubt he hoped that he could make Harold - who must have been impressed by Conan's submission - realise the deep meaning of the dubbing [of himself as a knight]"
Harold's supporters were called wicked and the man himself "the enemy of justice and law".
Other silly writeups kept stressing the rightful claim of William to the throne of England, but didn't talk of the coercion of Harold and how he was tricked into swearing his oath on a Saint's relics. Bloody French (unless these were quotations from Norman French chroniclers, which I doubt, but if that is the case - Bloody French of 1000 years ago].
boastful words chroniclers. no say in english part. but yes in french (?)
As a counterpoint, a video screened before the entrance to the tapestry room showed Harold's wife arguing (and providing the English point of view) with some guy called "Odin" (a knight of William's, IIRC), who was clad in chain mail.
The stupid audioguide could not be paused - it turned on automatically on entering the chamber. It could not be replayed either It's probably a scam to get you out of the place ASAP.
The tapestry was in surprisingly good condition, especially given it's 900 years old. The colours were surprisingly vivid.
Just like the Pont du Gard museum, photography was nominally forbidden, but there was no gestapo inside.
Horses on a ship, laughing when it sets out for England.
Harold being tricked by the evil Normans
I spy with my little eye, something starting with "A"
Charging the Anglo-Saxon shield wall
William is alive
I have 2 T-shirts with tapestry scenes on them, but neither were sold in the shop. They change their stock often.
Mill of Bishop of Bayeux, on river Aure (l'aure)
Bayeux Cathedral. They built it in only 17 years!
Portal
Nave
Pulpit
Altar
Chapel of St Michel and St Blasse
Tomb in the crypt
Ceiling design
Next I went to a D-Day museum (Museum for the Battle of Normandy, IIRC). They had the same funny no entry signs as in Italy. Maybe it's an EU directive.
Beach tetrahedron
They dressed up one mannikin as a soldier. With a tie. People go into battle with ties?!
There were lots of information panels and photos in the museum, but the artifacts weren't labelled.
The Canadians fought their way through Caen and the French gave them roses and wine, but they weren't allowed to drink it. Aww.
Medals
Short range artillery (?)
Montgomery named his dogs Hitler and Rommel. Gah.
There was a very long and amusing Patton quote which I wanted to take a picture of to save me the writing, but a staff member finally came along. Grr. Of course, this time they didn't even have the excuse of conservation (the stuff being 60 years old at most). Maybe they were leery of spies from the tons of other D Day museums in the area. Or they just wanted to increase the profit they could reap from the death and destruction of 62 years ago. Reprehensible, especially since some of these veterans are still alive.
I'd learnt my lesson after being unable to find hilarious Sissy poetry online (at least in English), and wouldn't have bought a book on Patton even if it'd been sold at the bookshop, so:
"Don't worry about your flanks. We must protect them, okay, but not to the point of doing nothing else. A damn fool once said that flanks must be protected, and since then every the (sic) idiot in the world thinks of nothing but protecting his flanks. We want none of that in the 3rd Army. The enemy can worry about his flanks. Now there's another thing I want you to remember. I don't want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We're not holding anything, we'll let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly, and we're not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We're going to hold onto him by the nose, and we're going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time, and we're going to go through him like crap through a goose." - Patton in his first speech to his troops
Incidentally, I am vindicated, since I couldn't find this quote on Google.
Allied propaganda was very funny.
There was a lot of information on the battle of Normandy, but no conclusion. A summary of the rest of the war, or even one of the rest of the war for France would have been very welcome. A commentary on the role the battle for Normandy played in the war, or even 'The battle was won. Now the war continued' or some such would've been nice, but none of this could be found at the museum.