Okay, I apologize, my blogs are a little out of order right now thanks to some very inconsistent internet this week. It had the annoying habit of shutting down unexpectedly and dumping my nearly finished posts. It's been a little bit like blogger Russian Roulette!
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This is last Monday morning waiting at Croissy Hotel de Ville. Patrick and Veronique took us to wait for the bus to come and begin our week long voyage into the country. We snapped one last picture! These are some of the best people I've every known.
Our first stop was the village of Bayeux, the home of the Bayeux Tapestry. As we walked into the village we went through this very cool little courtyard and I was fascinated by the way they had pruned and trained these trees to make a green wall.
The trees have been pruned to only have branches coming out in pairs, on on each side of the trunk! You can't help but be impressed by someones creativity and diligence!
The little town street. I will never be tired of these little streets, it doesn't matter how many I see in a day, I am always charmed.
The reason for stopping in this particular little ville was to see the Bayeux Tapestry. This artifact, while not actually a tapestry, but more of a gigantic embroidery project, was commissioned in the 1070's. Yes, that's almost 1000 years ago! And it is about 20 inches high and 230 feel long! I remember studying this in school and being fascinated by it, but I now realize I didn't really understand really what it was.
It tells the story of William the Conquerer and the Norman Conquests of England, culminating with the Battle of Hastings. I will spare the entire history ( although it is interesting and you should look it up on Wikipedia), and allow you just to be amazed at the art.
The characters are recognizable from scene to scene, and they are portrayed with an astonishing amount of dynamic movement and expression. This piece of art is also the most informative record of clothing, warfare, and domestic history available for this time period.
I thought this scene was interesting; God is parting the heavens in order to bring one of the kings who has died into his presence.
The tapestry is mounted behind glass in an enormous U shaped display case so you can see the whole story in its original and continuous form. I took this picture to try and give you a sense for just how large it is. This is only part of one side of the case.
This picture is for anyone who does handwork. This display shows pictures of the front, and then what the same thing looks like on the back. How in the world to they make the back look so good?? My handwork always looks like a bad spider web on the backside!
You can read this if you want a little more history!
A close up of the stitching detail. Beats me how they did that, but it's pretty impressive!
Another street, with the church in the background.
And you won't believe it, I've found a food in France that they do worse then we do in America! Ketchup!! I was craving French Fries (which they do very well), but the ketchup was no good And believe it or not, it's got too much sugar, which is just weird for a country that has figured out how to make a delicious dessert without all the sugar we use. Oh well, at least America can claim ketchup!
My window box picture for the day! But these are poppies, not the familiar geraniums. Normandy is known for their red poppies and they are in bloom everywhere right now; they just might be a new favorite flower for me!
This is a view of the village as we drove away.
Because I'm posting this a week after it happened I can tell you that this kind of a picture became common place as we traveled this week. I've always loved little towns, and France does them particularly well. As you drive by it seems like everyone must just be living in their great-grandma's house, because there doesn't seem to be much new building, but all the houses are well kept and seem to last forever. And every village has a church, sometime they're big like this one, and sometimes they are a little smaller, but always equally as charming to me.
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