Northen France - Day Three - Normandy and Bayuex

Caen is on the way to the Beaches, And the Caen castle is Where

"William the Conquer" was Born. We wanted to go to Caen Township first but it was Market Day and Sunday so it was either closed or roadblocked off, so we went up Caen Castle

A/ for the Views and B/ it was William the Conquer was born. 

The Castle is one that has been built, destroyed, rebuilt so many times they are still doing archeology to find what actually happened there

The Main Entrance is the 1700's, so quite young.

The Castle walls were 14th and 15th Century.

The Castle keep where William the Conquer was born has very little remaining and would have looked like the London Tower if it existed.

The church though has survived for centuries

The view from the top was of the city and the cathedral in the distance.

We were on a tight schedule and has some Normandy beaches to go visit. 

First was Juno Beach, there was a Tank that has since been restored

These special tanks were used for close combat at the beach landings.

The Cross of Lorraine monument at Juno Beach, Normandy 

was on display and stood out

Just below it was Monument that described the events of the day
it was the nearby Harbour the landing force wanted so they went around.

The cross is placed exactly where they broke the line. A Lot of men died for space.

 We drove along the coast and saw all sorts of
museums and monuments.

 We finally made it to Arromanches-Les-Bains
This where Port Winston was set up after the landing and
still has some of the old Mulberry harbors are
These are falling apart  but are still monuments of the great
achievements.

 I was able to get up close as it was low tide.

You can see how they were constructed.

 Next to them is the Museum of D-Day
This was disappointing considering all the museums
we had passed getting here

There were the usual  vehicles on display and displays inside

The town was interesting and we had lunch.
the cafe had seafood so I had the Mussels
while Jennifer had an omelet.
Once we finished here we drove to Bayeux.
That was interesting as it had a one-way street
and I drove up one, the wrong way.

It's an Old English Town that has a stream that runs through it.

Making it very picturesque

With beautiful statues on the buildings

And arch's from building long since gone.
But it is the Bayeux Taperisy that everyone comes to see.
NO photo's or Picture allowed, so these were illegal shots.

it is stored in a climate controlled dark room.
With guards at either end.

It is housed in the former Hospital

That is been turned into a Museum.
The Museum displays what William the Conquer would have
had as an Amry and how well prepared.
After finishing the tour we decided to find the hotel we were staying atand go for a walk.

The Hotel was a converted French Villa.

We were put up in a room on the second floor.

The bathroom was posh 1950's but still very good looking

So after settling in.

We decided to check out the Cathedral that was just up to the road.

It was literally just up the road.

It was built by Williams the Conquer's Brother

And is one of France's great cathedrals, but is hidden within this small town.

The design was out of this world when it was built and lots of money was spent on the outside

Inside it was White Marble everywhere.

Surprisingly not a lot of sculptures, but the one they did have, had style.

it was visible from almost the entire building.

The brother had his own statue.

The inside Statues were Marble and were works of art.

You could even touch them.

But the surprise was in the crypt, they had restored part of it, and on some of the pillars they had

The Windows were replaced in about the 1600's so we don't know what the originals were

Some of the originals are still around

After this visit, we went to a small Resturant that was wonderful.
When we came out the Cathedral was light up for the night.
This had been a great day.