Normandy

One of the advantages of coming to Paris with a program like Sweet Briar is the opportunity to take trips for free. Okay, it's not so much free as it is pre-paid by my parents as part of the program fee. But free sounds nicer.

So, six days after my return from Belgium, I found myself on a train to northern France for a weekend in Normandie and Bretagne. The program for the weekend ran as follows:

Saturday
-Visit to the Bayeux Tapestry
-Visit to the American Cemetery and the D-Day beaches
-Visit to Pointe du Hoc (another D-Day location)

Sunday
-Visit to Mont-Saint-Michel
-Visit to Saint Malo
-Return to Paris

I hadn't even heard of most of these locations, apart from the American cemetery, but it was an absolutely fantastic weekend. If any of you ever have the opportunity to visit any of these sites (particularly the American cemetery), take it.

Saturday

Bayeux Tapestry

Bayeux is an interesting town in and of itself. Like just about every European city/street/backyard, it has an absolutely stunning cathedral. It was in this cathedral, according to reliable sources, that William the Conqueror forced Harold II to sign an oath of allegiance to him, an oath would later lead to the Norman Conquest. In a much later and more well-intentioned conquest, it was the first city to be liberated by the Allies during the Battle of Normandy.

But the centerpiece of the town is the Bayeux Tapestry. I've seen a lot of tapestries since arriving in Europe, some of them amazing some of them pretty boring. This one definitely fits into the amazing category. For one thing, it's not a standard rectangular tapestry. It's only about two fet high. But it's long. Really, really long. Think 70 meters (that's 230 feet, or 43.81 Alannas laid end-to-end for you non-metric people).

For another thing, it's really old even by European standards, probably embroidered between 900 and 1,000 years ago. In the meantime, it's survived several revolutions and the Nazis. Pretty cool.

It tells the story of the Norman Conquest, and it's got pretty much everything in it: laughing horses, fleets of warships, Halley's Comet and a guy with an eyeball full of arrows. Without the (English) audioguide, I wouldn't have known what was happening in each panel, but it makes for an impressive sight nonetheless.

American Cemetery at Normandy

Normandy is the name for a region in the north of France. But for me, and I suspect many Americans, the name always conjures up images of World War II. Few sites are more symbolic of America's involvement in the war than the Normandy beaches. And that involvement became very concrete when I got my first glimpse of the American cemetery, with its thousands of perfectly-spaced marble crosses overlooking Omaha Beach.

I broke off from the group to wander the rows of graves. It was a surprisingly affecting experience. Let me give you some context: I have been called an emotional monster on more occasion, most notably when I remained dry-eyed for the entire duration of The Notebook. But I was more than a little choked up at the thought that each one of the crosses (over 9,000 in all) represented a person who had traveled thousands of miles just to be killed on a beach far from home. Some had died on the 4th of July, others on Christmas Day. There were plenty who died on D-Day itself. Then there were the unknown soldiers, whose crosses read simply: "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God." It was tremendously sad to realize that these were people with families, histories, aspirations that no one will ever know.

I don't know how what they must have felt sitting in those boats, looking at the beaches. I don't know how they brought themselves to storm the shore knowing that they would probably be dead within minutes. But, to me, the fact they did represents everything that is best about America. I left the cemetery with a better understanding of the war and the sacrifice it demanded of so many people.

Pointe du Hoc



Pointe du Hoc is an equally striking D-Day site that I never knew existed before this trip. Essentially, it's a point of land on the coast between Utah and Omaha beaches. It was a perfect location for inflicting heavy casualties on both beaches, and the Germans had control of it. So a group of 225 American soldiers scaled the cliffs in an attempt to take the Pointe and destroy the German guns. When they got to the top, they found that the guns had been moved, but they eventually managed to find and destroy them, limiting the number of American dead on the beaches. Then they held the point for several days until reinforcements arrived to help. At the end of the ordeal, 90 men were alive and in fighting condition.

The Pointe is one of the most surreal places I've ever been. Unlike the Normandy beaches, which show few if any traces of the war, this strip of coast is riddled with bomb craters, German bunkers and rusting barbed wire. It's an absolutely beautiful spot (one that really reminded me of Ireland, actually), but it looks like a moonscape because of all the fighting there. It was eerie, but it was good to see physical remnants of the war. Normandie and Bretagne were heavily affected by the war, but you would never know it from looking at the countryside, which is all green, rolling hills, stone farmhouses and cows grazing in the fields. It is absolutely impossible to believe that thousands died there. The Pointe bears the physical scars of the war, faded but still visible after 65 years, that make the conflict more concrete.

Saturday was difficult in some ways, but I am immensely lucky to have seen what I did that day. It's ironic that so much of America's history has been shaped on foreign soil, that I had to travel to a beach in France to really understand my own country. But I left Pointe du Hoc knowing something about America and its people that I didn't know before. It's corny and dramatic, but there it is.



Sunday

Mont-Saint-Michel

Mont-Saint-Michel was another place I'd probably never have visited without Sweet Briar. But it is one of the coolest places in France (admittedly, I haven't visited 96% of the country, but I'm pretty sure it would stand up to competition). "Mont" means "hill" or "mountain" in French. And this is not just any hill. It's an abbey on top of a hill, surrounded by a town, surrounded by a wall, surrounded by quicksand, surrounded by water. Those monks were not kidding around.



To get to the abbey you have to scale the hill, which should be simple. But, owing to my pastry-clogged arteries I was pretty winded by the time I got to the top. Fortunately, the view was well worth it, as the abbey terrace looks simultaneously onto the sea and the countryside. After two months of city living, it was nice to look around and see grass, hills and water everywhere. The abbey itself was also interesting, though most of the rooms are empty and the Sweet Briar staff had shamed me into taking a French audioguide, so some of the religious lingo was hard to understand. But the sense of history is enormous, considering that the site was first settled 1300 years ago. We had just enough time to visit the abbey and buy a few souvenirs before being herded back onto the bus for the last stop on our tour.


Saint Malo



After a busy weekend, some mid-afternoon fatigue was starting to set in. Fortunately, we had a perfect end to the trip in the walled port city of Saint Malo. The town is small enough to walk across, so it's easy to hit most of the main sights in an afternoon. Of course, I barely felt like walking at that point, so it was perfect to relax on the beach with a crepe (or two).

Some friends and I finally mustered up enough energy to visit the cathedral and (my favorite) La Demeure de Corsaire. It's a 300-year-old house that belonged to one of Saint Malo's richest citizens, a ship-owner and corsair.

For all of you who do not know what a corsair is:

a) You clearly didn't go to Carmel and therefore are missing out.
b) A corsair is a pirate. But not just any pirate. A mercenary pirate. Which means that they plunder in a patriotic spirit and supposedly follow rules stating that they won't attack neutral ships.

Anyway, it was an interesting tour. The house was filled with secret passageways, hidden rooms and creepy underground tunnels used to smuggle contraband goods between houses. Awesome.

After the tour, we headed back to the train station for our return trip to Paris. Overall, it was a fantastic trip. Yes, it suffered from some of the pitfalls that always befall group trips (a semi-creepy bus driver who really liked French 80s music, rushed site visits, a busful of people singing "Don't Stop Believing" as we pulled up to the D-Day beaches...), but it was a really interesting mix of activities. And although the American cemetery stood out above the other sights, it was great to see Mont-Saint-Michel, Bayeux and Saint Malo, places I never would have thought to visit on my own. When it comes to planning trips, my mind generally has two settings "Paris" and "the rest of Europe." I tend to forget that there is a France outside of Paris, and that it's equally worth exploring.