Monday 5th May

In the morning we took a leisurely drive to nearby Mont. St. Michel. The last time I visited was in 1968 or 1969 with parents in a caravan. Wow, how thing have changed. There used to be a large car park at the start of a causeway and you could only walk over when the tides allowed.

Now the car parks have been moved 2 miles further inland with a capacity for 4,000 cars! Mont St. Michel is apparently the second most visited tourist attraction in France, you can even do a day trip from Paris.

Motorhomes are charged an astronomic €25 for 24 hours with no facilities. It is just a car park with large parking bays.

I had read that to miss the worst of the crowds you should not enter Mont. St. Michel until late in the afternoon and so we left on our cold & windy walk (there are shuttle buses but dogs are not allowed) at about 3pm. The causeway is no longer, having been replaced by an extremely long bridge. Its design allows water to circulate around the island and reduce the build up of silt.

Mont St. Michel was essentially a religious establishment founded in 708 and then converted into a Benedictine Abbey in the 11th Century. During the French Revolution it was used as a prison. It sits on a small granite outcrop in an area of sands and the largest tidal range in Europe. The sands can be extremely dangerous with the tide coming in at an average of 4 miles an hour (6kmh). This however didn’t deter Sarah from taking Syke for an off lead play on the beach. To be fair we had just watched scores of French school children being lead out to sea by their teachers.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site is magnificent and unique when viewed from the outside, the inside is a different story. That is because of the like of us. The crowds on the one tat shop filled main street, even when we arrived, was very crowded. What was originally a nice collection of medieval houses has been spoilt by the commercialisation.

We did find some quieter sections higher up the mount and on those occasions it was possible to envisage it as a place of religious contemplation, but the view from a distance is what makes it special, in my opinion.

Tuesday 6th May

Team Basil drove a couple of hours to Camping des Bords de l’sure (49.2839, -0.6980 €23 non ACSI) which is pleasantly situated next to a river and about 20 minutes walk into Bayeux.

Walking in Bayeaux is exactly what we did. Bayeaux escaped most of the obliteration suffered to so many villages and towns in this area during Operation Overlord. There are plenty of medieval, half timbered buildings left and although the Cathedral had suffered a fire in the past and a partial collapse none of this was caused by the allies during the war.

The Cathedral was consecrated in 1077 by William the Conqueror. It is also the place where it is though William made Harold Godwinson promise, on an oath sworn on holy relics, William the English crown. This scene is portrayed on the Bayeux tapestry, which itself was held in the Cathedral until recently. Although the core of the Cathedral is Norman it has been greatly enlarged in the Gothic style, some work not being complete until 19th Century

Both Sarah and I visited the Bayeux tapestry, now in a specially designed building, not too long ago and so decided not to visit it again. I was in Bayeux for one reason, and one reason only!

Wednesday 7th May

I had the earliest start of this trip: 6.50am!!! I had to get in the centre of Bayeux by 8.20. Several days ago I had booked myself on a full day tour of the British and Canadian areas on D-Day.

I chose Overlord Tours and it turned out to be a great choice. Our guide was French, but with perfect English and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Battle for Normandy. The tour was also immaculately organised with our guide having large folders with relevant photographs and maps which he was quickly able to locate to illustrate some particular point of the tour. He even had a few videos which he used to illustrated some aspects.

I have read several books on this subject and am currently reading James Holland’s Normandy ’44 so most of the facts are fresh in my mind. I won’t recite every stop we made on the tour, but often the site was not at all as I expected. In particular the landing beaches were enormous. I had envisaged relatively small beaches, but the British and Canadian Beaches were each 5 to 6 miles long and from the Eastern end of the invasion beaches to Western end was 60 miles!

The only damper on the day was a bitingly cold wind. There only four of us on the tour and when we were standing on one of the beaches with our guide we all got extremely cold.

We eventually got back to Bayeux at 6pm, a nine and a half hour tour. I was shattered. Sarah and Skye walked into Bayeux to meet me and we ate at an Italian restaurant although my meal was more French than Italian.

We walked back to the campsite and I more or less fell straight asleep. Early start, late finish and nearly 8 miles walked, but it was well worth it.