France - Day 3

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I woke up this morning feeling quite bright, despite having a couple of drinks last night in the Marie Celeste pub in Arromanches. Now first thing first ablutions, I was straight down to the shower block to freshen up before the day’s adventures. To day we were going to head to Port en Bessin for Breakfast, then along the coast visiting the coastal towns and villages as we went. When I got to Port en Bessin there was a large market which took up a full street, after we looked around the market I went for breakfast at a café which was an experience because I was not offered a menu so I couldn’t just point to something in the menu, I had to talk to a lady who didn’t speak any English. Ordering coffee and a croissant wasn’t a problem but getting some butter and jam to put on the croissant was a major problem, never the less after the event, a few more words of French were learnt.

After breakfast I looked a little bit further around the town before getting back on the bike and back to my travels, my next port of call was Grandcamp Maisy where I saw a big silver statue, I had to go and investigate. It was the World Peace Statue erected to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the D-Day Landings. After looking at this statue, I went down the hill into the town but I was a little disappointed now because there was nothing special about this place. I stopped on the bike and headed towards Vierville sur mer which was a lot more interesting, I drove along the sea front then up the hill to call at a museum with a tank outside and a field gun called Long Tom, I had my picture taken Long Tom while I was there.

Once more back in the saddle I was heading back along the D514 before bearing off towards Bayeux and another museum where all the exhibits had been salvaged from the sea, he I saw many variations of the American made Sherman Tank that failed to make it to land during the D-Day landings. The guy that owned the museum was the diver who had been given the contract by the French government to clear the shipping lanes of the debris from 1944. In one of his exhibits he had found some personal papers from the commander of the tank and had managed to trace the guy and reunite him with his tank nearly 50-years later. The exhibition was very interesting and the owner was very eager to help me but I think he just wanted to buy his video at a cost of 30-euros.

Now I left this museum and headed towards Bayeux to try and find the famous Bayeux Tapestry. The tapestry was housed in its own museum and was easy to find. It was 70-metres long and housed in a “U” shaped room which I walked around with the aid of an audio guide. The tapestry told the story of the Norman invasion back in 1066 and was very interesting. Afterwards I watched a film about the history of the tapestry before leaving and heading back to Arromanches for the evening.

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Photos

Long Tom
When I was living with Darren I often dreamt about running away and joining a circus where I could be famous by being shot out of a canon into a net
I’m afraid this is not what I had in mind because the net would need to be about 18-miles away

Tank Commander Gulliver
I could have been a brigadier tank commander like Albert Philippe who commanded this Sherman Tank