La Normandie

I am going to spare you all the discussion on how lame I am, how it's been a week since I promised I would post updates, how the first of said updates pertains to a trip I took almost a month ago, blah blah blah. Instead, I will actually update for once, instead of just talking about it. How you like them apples?

Speaking of apples ... la Normandie (it actually works, I promise -- Normandie is known for its apples). What an amazing trip! The whole EDUCO crew traveled there for the weekend of Sept. 15-16. We had to leave at an insane hour on Saturday morning (7:45 ... ewwww), but thankfully I had Lizzie to wake me up and thus I was EARLY. That's right, early! Try not to fall out of your seats. Not to worry, though -- I still managed to delay the bus. In my defense, it was my friend Julia and not I who was late -- she called me and had me hold the bus -- but the irony was delightful.

After our slightly late start, we rode the bus for several hours before arriving in Bayeux, home of the Bayeux Tapestry. Gilles, our amazing tour guide, is actually Norman and a history teacher to boot, so he filled us in on the the Norman Conquest of England and William the Conqueror (a.k.a. Guillaume le Conquérant). The tapestry itself was very cool but took only about 20 minutes to view, so most of our time in Bayeux was spent touring the cathedral and eating lunch. Here's a back view of the cathedral:


Our next stop was the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach. I expected this visit to be powerful, but I was still stunned at its emotional impact. The Normandie coastline is breathtaking -- miles of clear, brilliant blue stretching beneath cliffs blanketed in a rich green -- but the natural beauty does not diminish the memory of the violence that occurred there. It is no longer a place of terror or destruction, but the struggle is preserved. It is a place of contemplation and reflection, a place of peace dedicated to the memory of war.






As you can see, it's a magnificent tribute to the American soldiers who fought there.

We left the cemetery a much more subdued group than we arrived, and the next stop on the trip, Pointe du Hoc, was equally sobering. Pointe du Hoc was a site of primary strategic importance during D-Day because of its location directly between Utah and Omaha Beaches -- the German guns situated there could easily fire on both landing points. It was also one of the most difficult places to secure, with steep, rocky cliffs and virtually no cover. I couldn't imagine climbing those cliffs, period, let alone with bullets raining down on me. Pointe du Hoc is the sheer face of rock furthest in the distance:


The land around Pointe du Hoc is still scarred with craters where the bombs fell. The deep pits register more immediately, viscerally, than the tranquil reflecting pools of the American Cemetery. You can also see the German fortifications, but the squat stone buildings don't have the same impact as looking out over the field of holes:



Pointe du Hoc and the American Cemetery offered two very different perspectives on D-Day and the war in general. Going to both was an extremely powerful experience, one that I highly recommend for any American with the opportunity to travel to Normandy.

After the WWII memorials, we drove for several more hours until we arrived in a small town on the coast. Here we had an amazing Norman dinner and then drove a little while longer to reach our lodgings for the night, a sailor school that rents out their hostel-like rooms. It sounds a little strange, but it was fine -- dormitory-esque, but fine -- and the view of the harbor was lovely:


The next day, we all piled onto the bus to drive to Mont Saint-Michel. Mont Saint-Michel is essentially a medieval village that's been preserved because it's all built on a single rock and never had room to expand or update. The rock is crowned by a giant cathedral and monastery (inactive).




It may not look like it, but it's quite a climb to get up there. This is the view from a cemetery halfway up the rock:


Still looks like we have the same distance to go as before, doesn't it? The views on the way up were beautiful, though -- the mud flats and meadows surrounding Mont Saint-Michel plus the medieval stone buildings.


Mont Saint-Michel used to be a tidal island, meaning its status as an island depended on whether it was high or low tide. Because of people hauling in land over the centuries to build up their pastures, the land surrounding it has become a polder (it's a word, I swear) instead of a true tidal island. It's now surrounded by these cool mud flats -- only problem is, the tide still comes in and out across the silt, thus creating vast tracts of quicksand. Victor Hugo said the tides here come in "à la vitesse d'un cheval au galop," or "as swiftly as a galloping horse." In reality, it's a little slower than that, but the tides still sweep in at a brisk one meter per second.


Fun fact: there are plans in place, to the tune of 150 million euros, to remove the silt and return Mont Saint-Michel to a true tidal island by 2012, complete with bridge and shuttle to the mainland. I wonder if they'll call it a tidal bridge, as it will really only be a bridge half the time and just a regular road the other half (har, har).

The cathedral on Mont Saint-Michel is fascinating -- parts that were rebuilt or repaired over the centuries were built according to current architectural tastes instead of matching the existing structure. The result is a hodgepodge of styles that represents more than 1000 years of construction techniques and aesthetics. A quick look at some of the styles:

Pre-Romanesque (Carolingian-era foundations/crypt)


Romanesque (nave)


Gothic (choir)


Neoclassical (nave exterior)


All from the same building! Fascinating, isn't it? Maybe not so much for non-art nerds, but I find it enthralling.

We also got to visit parts of the former monastery. These monks lived in great beauty, if not necessarily comfort. Here is their courtyard adjoining the church:


And here is their hall for receiving bigwig visitors like bishops and such:


Those arches are magnificent. Finally, we went down into the crypt, where we saw the HUGE columns that are anchored straight into the rock to support the church:


I don't know how well it shows up in the photo, but they are gigantic. We also saw this wheel-like contraption in another part of the crypt:


The monastery part of the cathedral was used to house political prisoners during the French Revolution, and apparently they would actually put prisoners inside that wheel, hamster-style, to turn it. The power the men generated was used to lift heavy loads of building materials and supplies.

After our visit to the cathedral, we ate a true Mont Saint-Michel lunch (complete with salt-meadow lamb and Norman apple cider) in a restaurant overlooking the mud flats. Then it was time to say our good-byes to Mont Saint-Michel and Normandie, load up the bus and head back to Paris. All in all, an amazing trip, and even more amazing because it was completely free. Way to go, EDUCO!