Normandy

It had been 10 years since we last took a trip to Normandy to see the the D-Day Beaches. My brother Brad and cousin Ryan visited in mid March and wanted to go so Kelly and I jumped at the chance for a little overnight trip with them to Bayeux.

We arrived in Bayeux on the train early in the afternoon and headed for our hotel, Le Bayeux, near the cathedral where we used to always stay when we took our study abroad students to Normandy. The people at the hotel are always so friendly.

Ryan, Kelly and Brad walking from the
train towards the Bayeux Cathedral

We had let the hotel know that we had stayed there before and they surprised us with room upgrades. They had partially completed converting a former school complex up the street into a new sister hotel, the Belle Normandy. The rooms were new and very modern. The bathroom shower was nicer than any of ours at home. Élodie, who runs the hotel, was so eager to please us and proud of their new accommodations.

Former School under Renovation

Kelly with Élodie below our hotel room window

Kelly at the hotel

View of Cathedral
from our hotel window

Once we were settled in our rooms, we ate a yummy late lunch at the Garde Manger in town and then saw the Bayeux Tapestry. The tapestry (which is really an embroidery) tells the story of William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings in 1066. William, who before the battle was called William the Bastard, Duke on Normandy, was designated by the King of England, Edward the Confessor, who had no children, as his heir. However, Harold, the Earl of Wessex, thought he should be king and seized power. So William gathered his forces, built Viking style ships, and sailed to England to claim the throne.

Detail from Bayeux Tapestry

It is believed that the tapestry was commissioned by Bishop Odo, the Bishop of Chartres Cathedral and half brother of William, and made in England in the 1070s. It was made to hang in the cathedral and it is amazing it has survived for almost 1,000 years.

Half Timber Building

Kelly and Brad walk 
the streets of Bayeux

After seeing the tapestry we walked to the cathedral to see where the tapestry hung. Bayeux was not bombed during World War II and is so charming.

Brad, Kelly and Ryan
Walking to the Cathedral

 

Cathedral Nave

The tapestry would have hung around the nave just above the heads of the people where you see the chairs in the picture above. It is a beautiful cathedral with lovely stained glass windows.

Inside the cathedral were British plaques commemorating World War I and II.

"To the glory of God and to
the memory of one million
dead of the British Empire who 
fell in the Great War 1914-1918
and of whom the greater part
rest in France"

"To the memory of all ranks of
56th Infantry Brigade who
died in the campaign for the
liberation of north western Europe
June 1944-May 1945
Erected by their comrades
We shall Remember"

Bayeux Cathedral

The next morning Kelly and Brad fit in a little run around the town of Bayeux before our D-Day tour.

Canal in the center of Bayeux
Kelly and Brad on their run

We were then treated to a huge breakfast buffet at the hotel and American style eggs and bacon. 

Ryan, Brad, Kelly and me at breakfast

With our host Élodie after breakfast

We were picked up about 8:30 am by our tour guide, Eric (a Quebecois living in Normandy), of Gold Beach tours, to see the beaches and D-Day sites. We headed first to Saint-Mère-Église, where the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Division dropped parachutists the night before the landings on the beaches. They were called the All Americans and the Screaming Eagles.

Church at Saint-Mère-Église

Brad, Kelly and me at the church

The parachutists were hoping to come in quietly at night and secure roads and bridges to enable those landing on the beaches to move quickly into Normandy. However, the weather was not good and many landed far from their targets. And unfortunately, a fire had broken out in the middle of Saint-Mère-Église in the middle of the night and the entire town was up fighting the fire. So the parachutists did not escape notice.

Parachutist on the Tower

You can see a dummy hanging from his parachute below the steeple. A soldier did get caught on the steeple, but on the other side of the church, not the tourist side. 

There were commemorative stained glass windows in the church.

Stained Glass with Parachutists

"They have come back"
25th Anniversary of D-Day

Kelly managed to hit his head on the monument to the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. He was just the right height to get whacked.

Brad, Kelly and Ryan

From there we drove to Utah Beach. If you were a soldier on D-Day, you wanted to land on Utah Beach. It was flatter with no cliffs and very few soldiers lost their lives on Utah Beach.

Our Guide Eric, on the right,
and his colleague and 
guide in training, Jean Charles

Utah Beach

We had a little time at Utah Beach to see the museum and learn more about the successful landing at Utah Beach and how despite landing in the wrong spot, they were still able to secure the roads through the marshes to allow the Allied advance. 

I watched a documentary on the plane coming to France called The Girl Who Wore Freedom. It was about the people in Normandy and how the war affected them, including a 5 year old girl who wore a dress made out of parachutes in the pattern of an American flag for the one-year anniversary ceremony of the landing. I was surprised to see her dress in the museum and a little display about her.

American Jeep

The Girl Who Wore Freedom

We ate lunch at a restaurant by the beach that had been a fishing hut the day of the landings. Behind the hut was a German communications bunker which the US Navy quickly took over.

Communications Bunker

Major Richard Winters

For those who watched Band of Brothers, on our way out of Utah Beach we stopped at a new memorial to Major Richard Winters. He was a humble man who didn't want a memorial just for him but finally agreed to it when it would honor all the soldiers landing on Utah Beach.

The next stop was Pointe du Hoc, a heavily fortified German defense with huge guns on the top of a sheer cliff.

Brad and Ryan at concrete
bunker for long range guns

View from the cliff at Pointe du Hoc

The area had been heavily bombed before D-Day, destroying one of the 6 guns and compromising another. The guns had been removed to a field and covered over while repairs were made to the bunkers. But the US Army Rangers didn't know this and were tasked with scaling the cliffs and taking out the guns to protect the Allies on nearby beaches.

Kelly at a bunker

The bunkers for the guns are still there-the Germans used reinforced concrete with steel bars. The Allies found the hidden guns in the field after following the tracks made hauling them there. The area is still dotted with lots of craters that my kids loved running in many years ago. Sadly the craters are all fenced off now.

There is a memorial to the Army Rangers in the shape of the knife they carried in their boots. It is right on the edge of the cliff. Last time we were there it risked falling into the sea but I guess it has now been stabilized

Army Ranger Memorial

We headed back to our van to drive to Omaha Beach where so many lives were lost on D-Day.

Leaving Pointe du Hoc

By the time we got to Omaha Beach it was getting colder and a light rain started falling. It was low tide like when the soldiers first started landing on D-Day.

Omaha Beach

Brad and Ryan on the left
on Omaha Beach

We could see where the guns were placed on the rise above the beach that made quick work of the soldiers until they were finally able to take them out. It felt like hallowed ground.

Our last stop was the American Cemetery above Omaha Beach. We had very little time there before it closed because the road was closed and we had to take a big detour.

Kelly, Brad and Ryan at the American Cemetery

By then it was raining harder and unlike other times we visited the cemetery, the grass was roped off and we couldn't wander among the graves. I love the statue celebrating the youth of American rising from the waves.

"The Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves"

We had a nice leisurely dinner back in Bayeux that evening and collected our bags at the hotel. We caught the 8 pm train home to Paris. We paid a little extra and rode home in first class, Kelly's favorite way to travel. The trains to Bayeux are new and have wifi on them. They are very comfortable and we arrived back to Paris in about two hours, ready for our next adventure.

Ryan and Brad on the train

Chartres

One of our favorite easy day trips from Paris is to see Chartres Cathedral. It is about an hour on the train and we rode right by the gardens of Versailles. My cousin Shauna and her daughter Anna came to visit in early March for 10 days, which gave us enough time to spend a day in Chartres. An added bonus was that Kelly was able to sneak away from his researching and writing and come with us.

Kelly, Anna and Shauna with Chartres Cathedral

Chartres Cathedral was built during the 12th and 13th centuries. It is the high point of French Gothic art and contains the most original stained glass windows. Chartres is on the ancient Saint Jacques de Compostelle pilgrimage trail that ended in Spain. The Cathedral truly is a marvel and the best preserved example of Gothic art.

Kelly and me

Kelly at Chartres Cathedral

The stained glass windows date from the 12th and 13th centuries. One of the oldest and my favorite is the Jesse Tree. It is under the rose window over the façade of the cathedral. The cathedral is famous for the vivid blue color of its window, especially in this window representing Christ as a descendant of Jesse. You can see the tree coming out of Jesse lying down in the bottom window and leading through the generations up to Christ at the top of the window. This window is truly divine.

Jesse Tree

West Façade with Jesse Tree on the Right

A lot of cleaning and restoration work has been done over the past 10 years. It has made such a difference. We could hear the workers banging away on one closed section on the south side while they were there. It is wonderful to see the stone and windows cleaned and restored. The windows really sparkle.

The nave

Ambulatory Choir carvings

Ambulatory carvings

Zodiac Window

The carved scenes of the life of Mary and Christ along the choir wall in the ambulatory were begun in the 1600s and took 200 years to complete. They just finished cleaning them-it took seven years.

Creation of Adam and Eve
The Good Samaritan

Another favorite window is the one that depicts the stories of the creation and fall of Adam and Eve and the Good Samaritan. Often in the cathedrals stories from the Old and New Testament are paired in stained glass windows or with sculpture. This is done to draw parallels and connections between the stories, as in this window, which shows how Christ's parable of the the Good Samaritan symbolizes the story of Adam and Eve.

On the north side of the cathedral some of my favorite statues flank the doors. The first grouping starts with Melchizedek, then Abraham holding Isaac about to be sacrificed, standing on a lamb caught in the thicket. Next is Moses holding the tablet with the Ten Commandments and then Samuel and David.

Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, Samuel and David

John the Baptist and Peter, far right

John the Baptist is the second statue from the right above. He has on a "hairy" robe. To the right of him is Peter who is always depicted holding keys-the keys to the kingdom of God.

Portion of the Labyrinth

Also inside the church is a labyrinth. It dates from the 13th century. It represents the long and winding path towards salvation. Often those who could not make the long pilgrimages would make a symbolic pilgrimage on their knees, following the path of the labyrinth in the church. 

Chartres is such a cute little town. We wandered down to the main square to find a warm place to each lunch. The skies were clear and blue and we just about froze in the cathedral. Tradition has it that it is always cold when we visit Chartres. Even when we went in July in 2014 there was a fluke cold snap. 

Kelly, Anna and Shauna on the Chartres streets

Half-Timber Building

View of the Cathedral

Shauna had read about another church in Chartres to visit called Église Saint-Aignan. It was built in the 17th century.

Kelly at Saint-Aignan

This church obviously did not have the care and repairs of Chartres Cathedral but it was a sweet gem of a church. It was very colorful.

Nave of Saint-Aignan

Inside of Front Doors

The stained glass windows were more modern--mostly from the 19th century--and easier to read.

Window depicting Christ's birth and life

There were two statues I admired. One was Joseph holding the Christ child and the other Joan of Arc.

Joseph holding Christ

Joan of Arc

We continued walking around the town and visited the Cathedral one more time. 

We found some sunshine in the town square near the Hôtel de Ville. We sat and watched the children on the Merry-Go-Round and soaked up the sun before catching our train home to Paris. It was a perfect day with my cousins.