Sans Lapins

Over the past couple weekends Misty and I have been leaving the confines of Paris to explore the country. The first place we went was the quiet town of Bayeux in Normandy.

Normandy wasn’t always quiet, of course, and many Americans don’t think of Normandy without considering the Allied invasion that marked a pivotal point of World War II. Bayeux is one of the few towns around that area that survived the bombings mostly intact, and now counts itself as a major jumping-off point for tourists wanting to see those historic beaches for themselves. Not that there were really that many in the off-season:

Bayeux is also home to another piece of history, the magnificent Bayeux Tapestry. It was created in 1077 to depict the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings. This battle, occurring during the greater part of October 14th, 1066, marked the point when William of Normandy (also known as William the Bastard), defeated Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, and henceforth became better known to us as William the Conqueror.

If you’re not a fan of history, then perhaps this all seems a bit blasé to you. I admit that, two years ago, I couldn’t tell you when the Battle of Hastings occurred — I even lost a pub quiz because of this very question. I suspect many Americans couldn’t do the same; that said, its effect on the history of England and the English language is difficult to understate. There are very few times when the direction of history changes so monumentally, and in such a way that makes for a good story.

The tapestry is wonderful piece of art and a wonderful story. It’s the story of the death of the previous English king, Edward the Confessor; the difficult relationship between William and Harold, two men with enormous ambitions; a cameo appearance by Halley’s Comet; the building of the armada that took William’s invasion force across the channel; the burning of peasant villages and a women and child fleeing the fire; finally, the battle depicted in absolute gory detail, complete with images of decapitated soldiers, both men and horses lying dead, the field flowing with blood.

Unfortunately no pictures could be taken of it, so you’ll have to content yourselves with the pictures on the Wikipedia page.

We also visited the Bayeux Cathedral, where Harold made his oath to support William in his claim to the throne of England, the breaking of which lead to the invasion (or so the tapestry says):

We were only there for a day so we couldn’t go to the Normandy beaches. We did drink some good Calvados, a yummy apple brandy named for the region.

I’m slowly trying to catch up with our travels — expect another post about our weekend in Brittany!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 4:47 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.