Normandy part I - Mont Saint-Michel and a few other places

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I didn't see any Vikings in Normandy

In the Wikipedia article on Normandy I found the following passage: "The fiefdom of Normandy was created for the Norwegian Viking leader Hrolf Ragnvaldsson". When I traveled around in various parts of Normandy for a few days I didn't see any trace of any Vikings. But I did see a lot of other interesting things and I will tell you about some of those pretty soon.



In August this year I, Ake, was able to make a short trip to Normandy while Emma had to stay at home and work. Emma wasn't too upset about me going away on my own because my main purpose of this trip was to see World War II related sites and Emma is not too keen on seeing those. I will tell you more about the sites i visited in the next blog entry. Here I will focus on the things I saw that weren't on the original agenda but that I ended up seeing anyway because they happened to be on the way.



I flew from Stockholm to Paris and from there I took a train to the city Caen in Normandy. Caen is very close to the beaches where the allied troupes landed on the D-Day June 6, 1944 and was therefore a great place for me to stay on this trip.



Not very far from Caen is also Mont Saint-Michel, a former monastery located on a tidal island in the English Channel. I have for several years, ever since I saw a photo of it, planned to visit Mont Saint-Michel. So since I now happened to be in the neighbourhood I simply had to go. When you see the photos I have put up on this blog I think you understand why I had to make this little detour and visit this place.



Mont Saint-Michel is a very popular place to visit and hence is also pretty crowded. It is a very pretty place with old houses standing close together on the lower parts of the island and higher up, towering over everything else, is the majestic monastery.



The halls and the corridors were just as majestic as you might expect in a monastery at such a location as this. One of the halls actually reminded me of the Great Hall in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter novels.



In Caen itself I walked by the local cemetery on my way to the Mémorial de Caen, a war memorial museum. There were a few impressive graves and tombs there. Not nearly as many as in the large cemeteries in Paris such as Père Lachaise or Montparnasse of course. But since I didn't have much else to do in the evening I still thought it was worth a visit.



After I left Caen I went to Calais a bit further north in Normandy. Calais was a good place to have as a base for for visiting some other WWII sites. But other than that I didn't find Calais very interesting. I added a few photos from Calais anyway but that is mainly because I don't really have many other photos to publish.



I admit this it not a very interesting blog entry. But, as I said in the beginning, this is just bits and pieces that I came across on the way to other places.

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Photos

Mont Saint-Michel
Mont Saint-Michel is a very popular place to visit. It is a very pretty place with old houses standing close together on the lower parts of the island and higher up, towering over everything else, is the majestic monastery

Corridor in Mont Saint-Michel
The halls and the corridors were just as majestic as you might expect in a monastery at such a location as this

One of the halls in Mont Saint-Michel
One of the halls actually reminded me of the Great Hall in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter novels.

The Cloister in Mont Saint-Michel
Pillars lined up in the Cloister in Mont Saint-Michel

Cemetery in Caen
In Caen in the local cemetery there were a few impressive graves and tombs. Not nearly as many as in the large cemeteries in Paris such as Père Lachaise or Montparnasse of course, but since I didn't have much else to do in the evening I still thought it was worth a visit.

Cemetery in Caen
Not nearly as many as in the large cemeteries in Paris such as Père Lachaise or Montparnasse of course. But enough to make it worth spending a few minutes taking photos there

Saint Pierre church
An impressive Church in Caen

Joan of Arc statue
Statue of Joan of Arc in Caen

City Hall, Calais
Calais City Hall was pretty nice

Watchtower
Watchtower in Calais dating back to the 13 th century

Low tide
In the English Channel the difference between high and low tide is very large. They have a quite cleaver solution to avoid the boats sinking down in the mud at low tide. They have a barrier low enough for the boats to leave at high tide but high enough to trap enough water at low tide to keep the boats afloat

TGV
TGV is short for Train à Grande Vitesse, the name of the French bullet trains. Top speed about 320 km/h

Milliary columns
Milestone from the times when France was part of the Roman Empire

Comments

[Dancing Dave]

WOW
Hard to beat...isn't it?

[Dancing Dave]

Corridors
I kinda like impressive corridors...so had to comment.

[Ake Och Emma]

Addicted to corridors
I also love corridors. Try to squeeze one in whenever I can. Ake

[Dancing Dave]

Wow!
Magnifique

[Ake Och Emma]

...and the photo is nowhere near the real thing
Thanks. As so often is the case, it is much better to see it IRL. /Ake