After a brief stopover in Wexford to catch up with Fritz at the Friary and another nice overnight stay with Vincent and a lovely lunch with Barry, Louise and family we drove to Rosslare and boarded the “Oscar Wilde” which was full of French teenagers and other passengers. It was a bit lumpy at first but calmed down overnight which made for a good crossing. After a good coffee we disembarked to the right hand side of the road in Cherbourg at 11am on the 13th May and after setting the Tom Tom we set off up and around the coast to Quettehou via Barfleur to have lunch at La Chaumiere, a lovely little restaurant recommended to us by
Maurice’s cousin Paul which proved to be a winner with a three course ample lunch with coffee for about $30 total. We decided that when we are on our own we would have our main meal at lunch time which we find is digested better than having a large meal in the evening and going to bed on a full stomach especially after travelling in the van for
most of the day. The only drawback is that a lot of the time some wine is included with lunch and we feel like a sleep afterwards which would be alright in the van if we didn’t have to drive on further.
It doesn’t get really dark until about 9.30pm and we are enjoying the long evenings.
It was sunny and almost a tropical temperature at 14degrees when we hit the continent which was about 7 degrees warmer than what
we had had in Ireland for a lot of the time. The wind however was still biting as we wandered around the areas of Utah and
Omaha beach and the American war cemetery. A very moving place to see, beautifully kept and in a wonderful position right on the coast. We visited the museum for which 2 American brothers had raised the money and although an excellent museum giving the history of the D Day invasion and a history of the German and American forces, it sadly made no mention of all the English and other forces of the Commonwealth countries who lost their lives.
Most of the roads that we took were flanked on both sides much green pastures and fields of beautiful yellow rape seed. Taking the backroads a lot of the time took us through the centres of lovely little villages where a lot of the main streets consisted of one lane.
The Fiat “camping car” as it is known in France has handled extremely well and is just the right size for the narrow streets
and country lanes.
We arrived in Bayeux about 8pm and settled into the excellent camping area (also recommended by cousin Paul) which
was situated very close (about 10minutes walk along the river) to the city. The receptionist I thought was not French from her accent and found that she was from Tasmania!
We wandered into the old city which was practically deserted and found the cathedral with it’s beautiful architecture and found
the building where the Bayeux tapestry was housed so we knew where to go the next day when it opened.
The next morning we were the first at the door at 9am and had the place practically to ourselves with only one other person viewing the tapestry at the same time. It is an amazing feat of embroidery over 70 metres long detailing the battle of Harold and William the Conqueror in 1066. It had an excellent audio system which was easy to listen to considering some of the audio systems we have had previously.
Outside the building a workman was blasting away the large graffiti left by some morons. Sadly it seems to be everywhere in the world.
A good strong espresso for about 1 euro and walk back to the camping ground saw us take off about 11am for our long (6hour) trip to Chateauroux via Le Mans.