Summer's spot: Day 1: Bayeux

After leaving the beach (*tear), we continued to Bayeux to see the famous tapestry.

Jacqueline had to get a picture here at the entrance in the same spot where she has a picture with her mom from two years ago. I love that she's still holding a cookie. Those things were our staple bus snack food.

Lovely horse-boat action going on at the entrance.

A little about the tapestry:
It measures 20" by 230' and because the designs aren't woven into the fabric, it's not a tapestry, but rather an embroidery. We don't know much about its history, but it was probably made in England around 1070, and commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William the Conqueror's half-brother. From what I've read, the French also call it "Queen Mathilda's Tapestry," leading some to believe that she made it, but that's highly unlikely. (On an unrelated but funny note, if my internet sources are correct, William was 5'10" and his wife Mathilda was 4'2"! Did she walk on stilts? Have a sore neck from looking up at him all the time?) The tapestry was taken to Bayeux and displayed in the cathedral there every year for the Feast of Relics. That went on for 400 years and over the next 300 years, I guess the churchgoers lost interest. It almost perished in the revolution when the people of Bayeux used it to cover ammunition wagons, and again when it was almost cut up to be used as decoration. What were these people thinking? Since then, it's been restored, moved around some more, and saved from possible capture by the Germans and destruction from the D-Day invasion--they hid it in the Louvre. It's had its share of damage and is missing pieces but it's remarkable it survived at all. Today it's back in Bayeux under ideal preservation conditions. If you have five minutes, watch the animated YouTube video and maybe in the meantime someone can teach me how to post those directly on the blog.

Afterward, we explored the town. The rest of the pictures are pretty random. In one of the lace shops we stopped at, there was a lady making lace who we watched for a while. It must take a looong time to learn it that well.

The cathedral where the tapestry was kept for so long. We didn't get to go inside, unfortunately. It kind of looks like Mont St. Michel, which is up next.