Caen and Tapestries on Day Three

On Saturday, we awoke to another rainy morning in Bayeux. After a light breakfast provided by the hotel, we were off to the Caen Memorial at 8:30am. For a group of students who claim to be studying tourism, it shouldn’t have been such a surprise that the Memorial was actually a huge, well-stocked and well-interpreted museum spanning the lead up events to World War II, the war, post-war, the cold war, and the manchurian war. Embarrassingly, many of us had sort of expected a statue, or garden.  

It was actually this!

Museum and Exhibits

The interpretation was via audio guide, which is useful if a bit impersonal, but the exhibits themselves were impressive. A large walk through tunnel featuring images, written interpretation, objects, short films, and some large relics of the Caen and other atlantic wall fronts such as a bunker and tank. 

The centre had also been part of producing a film, entitled D-Day, which was about 18 minutes detailing the Battle of Britain and operation overlord. It didn’t have quite the emotional impact of the short film at Juno, and was mainly made up of dialogue over snapshots, which was sometimes a bit abrupt and jarring. One moving bit, though, showed a series of photos of smiling young soldiers, and in every one a few of their fellows faded out as the audio spoke of the death toll and the many casualties.

We had a few Q&A sessions with the director, before and after our tour, and he gave us some background about the Caen memorial, and of their collections. We were also given lunch in their cafeteria, and, after a wander through the gift-shop, we were returned to Bayeux by 3:00pm to view the renowned Bayeux Tapestry.

Portion of Bayeux Tapestry

Technically, the Tapestry isn’t part of our battlefield tourism itinerary, but it would be absolutely blasphemous to visit Bayeux even for the day and not see it. The Tapestry is an over 60 metre length of linen, hand embroidered with dyed wool to tell the story of the Battle of Hastings and William the Conquerer. It is also nearly one thousand years old, and preserved beautifully. The Tapestry is hung along a long, u-shaped hall behind softly lit glass, and an audio guide was used to tell the story as we went. The tapestry was staggering- the audio guide, however, was terrible. The pause and stop buttons had no effect at all, and the voice just charged on through every panel even if you wanted to take time and take in the detail. There was no other interpretation (written tags, etc) to fall back on, so one had to rush through to keep up with the story and the descriptions of each panel. Afterward, there was an upper floor with a great deal of information and interpretation not only of the battle and William the Conqueror, but about the tapestry, its history, its making, and its preservation, and a film as well. I enjoyed it, but it seems like it would be a much better idea to go through the upper floor and the film first, and hear not only about the details of the story, but of the tapestry and it’s history, and then walk through and see it. You wouldn’t require the ineffective audio guide, and it would prepare you for the reality of what you are viewing in a completely different way. It was wonderful, and even though it wasn’t a direct part of our tour objectives, it was a perfect way to spend a rainy hour in the afternoon. 

Afterwards, we carried on to enjoy the other things that France offers besides beauty and history:

Sante, et bon appétit!