Wanderlust and Oysters

This weekend I took another one of those really great, adventure-filled trips - this time to Normandy. We left on Friday morning and the drive was so much fun. There was definitely more to see than on the way to the Loire Valley - it seems as though the North of France has more towns along the freeway. We had a GPS so that we would be able to do some unplanned exploring, and we chose the voice setting whose name was "Jill." Jill had a terrible French accent, and it was hilarious listening to her pronounce names of roads and cities.


It took us about three hours to get to Mont St. Michel, which was the first stop on our trip. As we were driving up to the causeway that leads to the abbey, we could see it in the distance. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. The morning fog hadn't quite lifted, and Mont St. Michel looked like a mirage off in the distance. The abbey at the top was constructed in the 8th century, but before that, the island was called monte tombe. According to legend, the Archangel Michael appeared before a bishop in Avranches (a town in Normandy) in the year 708 and instructed him to build a church on the rocky island. The bishop, St. Aubert, repeatedly ignored the angel's instructions, until Michael burned a hole in his skull with his finger.
I had so much fun exploring the little winding streets that take you up to the abbey at the top. The buildings are so delightful and there are so many cute little restaurants. The view from the top is incredible, and the abbey itself is beautiful. It's no wonder that in the middle ages, this was considered to be the ultimate pilgrimage site in Europe.


After we spent some time walking up to the top, taking pictures, and looking through all the sweet little shops, we decided to unpack our food from the car and have a picnic so that we could enjoy the beautiful weather. The picnic consisted of apples, baguettes, brie, and little chocolate muffins. It was the perfect little lunch, and we had such a wonderful time just sitting in the sun and eating our simple food.
Then we discovered the mud flats. Because the tide comes in fairly regularly, the ground all around the island is made up of black, muddy sand and puddles of water. We had the best time running around in the mud, and the sun was starting to set so everything looked so pretty. Occasionally one of us would slip or fall or sink down into the sand a little too quickly, and then we would scream and laugh about it. I felt like a little kid, and I swear I would have started a mud fight if we hadn't been using a rental car. I also got some really great pictures of the island.


I was sad when we had to leave, but as the sun was setting and people started leaving, I didn't think it was such a great idea to be playing out there in the quick sand in the dark with no one else around. So we decided to drive to our hotel, which was only about 20 minutes away. We were so exhausted from driving and from running around that we ate dinner at the hotel restaurant (which turned out to be delicious!) and then passed out pretty early.
On Saturday we got up and hit the road right away because we wanted to do as much as we could before we had to have the rental car back. Our first stop was Bayeux, an historical town only an hour away from Mont St. Michel where the Bayeux Tapestry (in French, la tapisserie de Bayeux) resides. To get there, we had to drive through the country, using mainly country roads rather than the freeway. We got to see all these charismatic, provincial houses and some truly captivating landscapes. We even stumbled upon a medieval castle that was simply gorgeous. I've never seen so much beauty in one place in my entire life.

The town of Bayeux itself is gorgeous. There is a little house with a waterwheel on the river and there is a beautiful cathedral - you can see the top of it over all the trees and houses. I have always been intrigued by the tapestry - I learned about it in middle school, and even though I saw it in high school, I couldn't wait to see it again. The tapestry depicts the Norman Invasion of 1066 and the events that lead up to it. It's 224 feet long, and you don't realize just how long that is until you see it in person. I can't believe how long it would have taken for someone to make this tapestry, and the scenes are so detailed. Luckily, the price of our admission included a free ear set, which played cute music and described what was happening in each part of the tapestry. I took pictures of a few of my favorite scenes:

Horses and soldiers get stuck in the quick sand around Mont St. Michel

Halley's comet appears - it is taken as a sign that Harold will be punished for breaking his oath, and that William and his troops will soon invade Normandy

Harold dies from an arrow that struck him in the eye

After the tapestry museum, we decided to drive up the coast to see the D-Day beaches and the American Cemetery. These are both things that I had seen on my trip to France in high school. I don't want to say that I wasn't able to fully appreciate it when I was younger, because I remember that it was actually a very profound experience. I think because I'm older and more grown-up than I was the first time around, and simply because I know more than I used to, that it meant more to me somehow to have the opportunity to visit these places again.
There are over 9,000 people buried in the American cemetery. That means that when you look out across the cemetery, all you can see are white headstones for a long time. Walking through the cemetery, I had to constantly remind myself that most of the people buried here were my age or younger. That's something that doesn't leave you untouched.

After walking around on the beach for a while, we had worked up an appetite and went in search of a restaurant. Being so close to the coast, I had really worked up an appetite for seafood. Luckily, we were able to find a seafood restaurant in a quaint little fishing village close by. I had two HUGE oysters that were so fresh and so delicious that I think they may have been caught that morning. Then I had a HUGE pot of mussels that made me so happy! I would move to Normandy just so that I would be able to eat their amazing seafood every day of my life.

Our last stop before heading back to Paris was Pointe du Hoc - a clifftop location just west of Omaha beach, where the Germans had set up a battle station. It was one of the first things that the allied soldiers were instructed to take out on D-Day. I couldn't believe how high up the cliffs were - and what was more unbelievable was the fact that soldiers actually had to climb these cliffs to get to the top. It was eerie to see all the craters that had been dug out, and I think it's interesting that all this stuff is still there. Even the barbed wire on the edge of the cliff was in tact from the battle.




When I got back I realized that I only have two more months here, and I got really sad. I feel like there's so much more I want to do, and I just don't have enough time to do it. I guess I'll just have to continue to make every moment count!