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Published: August 26th 2009
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The Petit Tour - Day 1
Streatham Hill to Brittany is a few hundred miles as the crow flies. We didn't have a crow big enough, so chose to drive, crossing the channel in the belly of a train and stopping at a WWII cemetery and in William the Conqueror's backyard on the way.
Driving on the right, and therefore the wrong, side of the road didn't hinder our progress as much as the numerous 'peages' (toll stations) en route, which reduced the deluge of British caravaners to a trickle.
The American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer is located behind Omaha beach. Looking down from the viewpoint you get the impression that the flat expanse of sand would be an excellent place to throw down a towel and chill out. No need to get up early to beat the Germans to a spot here.
The irregular form of the grass covered bluff leading up from the beach hides some of the entrenchments that soldiers had to breach as they made their treacherous passage in the summer of 1944. The impression now is mostly of a lumpy jumble of vegetation.
In contrast is the regular design and order of
the cemetery. Set in immaculately manicured lawns, next to abundant beds of colourful flowers, are hundreds of milk white marble crosses and stars that commemorate the dead and that jar and sooth at the same time.
The military precision that placed the headstones in such a uniform and precise alignment seems to me both necessary and inadequate. Necessary, as a memorial and a place of remembrance of lives cut short. Inadequate, in the sense that the order and cold marble doesn't convey the chaos and terror of hot metal tearing into flesh. What could be adequate?
For every eight or ten crosses or stars, (you had to be a Jew or a Christian to claim a posthumous spot here), with an inscription detailing the lost man's name, rank, hometown and date of death, there was one which unhelpfully read: "Here rests in honoured glory, a comrade in arms, known but to god". These 'tributes' first brought to my mind images of empty graves and unidentifiable remains. Then thoughts of families left forever to wonder about a loved ones actual fate or perhaps freed from an attachment to a tangible but insufficient piece of stone.
There were a
lot of cross and stars. More than nine thousand in total. All dazzling in their white, pristine-ness. The tourists taking pictures amongst the dead seemed a little callous - but when in Rome. Nathalie, however, was reluctant to perch on a cross throwing v-signs like the others. I've no idea why?
We never made it to the British or German cemeteries, but I understand the British is understated and the German ashamed in its attitude at least when compared to the almost gaudy American one. The French dead, I was to learn, are are not congregated in one place but are to be found in local churchyards across the land.
M-S-M To complete day one of our Petit-Tour we continued south-west past Bayeaux, famous for a tapestry I'm reliably told by my French guide and on to our hotel for the night. We were to be auberged in, ladies and gentleman, mesdames et messieurs, the second most visited and photographed place in all of Francia, the majestic, magnificent, Mont Sant-Michel.
Saint Michael's Mount, is an 11th century abbey, formerly occupied by monks. In the olde days reaching the abbey to indulge your monastic urges required a trek
across flats of some very quick sand. Sand so quick in fact that, penitents would stay inside the abbey for decades just so they didn't ruin another smock or lose another pair of sandals.
These days the abbey is occupied by nuns as the last monks upped and left a few years back because their silent altar licking kept being disturbed by tourists with their kids and camera shutters. They'd also grown sick of people washing the sand off their feet in the holy water.
The view of the abbey and it's surrounding buildings is an aesthetic amuse-bouche as you approach. Its distinctive silhouette can be glimpsed through trees from miles away and its impact only increases as you get nearer, up until you're standing next to it you can't see anything but wall.
From a distance there's a number of spiky steeples and a church structure at the top, a sheer faced citadel looking thing below that, some smaller buildings and then what appears to be a town at the foot. All this set in splendid isolation surrounded by the sea.
Our home for the night on the Mont was the hotel of Madame Poulard
(no relation to Mademoiselle Poulain in the movie). Madame Poulard is globally famous, I understand, for omelettes so light, delicate and flavoursome that people from all over the world come to watch them being made in a special kitchen, in a golden bowl. With a magic utensil. By an angel.
Not only that, these eggy delights are so divine, Mme Poulard sees fit to charge not, five or ten of your Frenchy Euros but a brace of 22 of the fuckers without even including a sniff of ham and cheese. Madame could have Pulled-as-hard as she wanted, because she wasn't getting this wizened tourist's 20 odd euro for a couple of broken eggs. Touche!
Needless to say there was an audience of snappers and gawkers watching the amazing omelette being made in the viewing kitchen. Unfortunately I was only able to spot an egg stained teenager, wielding a copper bowl and what most people would call a big whisk. No angels at all.
After checking in, we eagerly awaited high tide when legend has it the sea comes rushing in at the rate of a galloping horse. We noticed that, despite the tannoy announcements advising people to
move their cars from any low-lying parking spaces on the flats, the sea in fact it comes in at the rate of a lethargic one legged donkey. The crowds were transfixed!
Once inside the walls the lower part of the Mont is a ye-olde stone and timber beamed town with a winding cobbled walkway that takes you up to the abbey. The walkway is flanked by shops and restaurants that cater for the untold tourists. The restaurants we tried were less than welcoming in that they either shut early, were staffed by assholes, randomly changed their prices, or flat out refused to serve us. We got all four in one brasserie, which like many establishments on the Mont was owned by the same oligarchical Madame Pull-hard of the overpriced egg confections.
The abbey at night was bathed in light which gave its stonework and intricacies an eerie but beautiful air. An after dinner stroll took us around the gardens but we were too late and too tired to soak up the glory of the interior. We planned instead to walk off the Mont to see it by night from a distance but found the tide still high and
that we were happily trapped for the night in our own abbey in the sea.
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Flo
non-member comment
tres bien mon amie x