I was awake early & was quite excited as we were taking the train to Bayeux & I was going to see the tapestry!! I had thought about making the trip twice previously but the museum was closed both times (it closes Dec - March & another time was closed for renovations).
We walked up to the station & called into Key & Co for a coffee, it was lovely, the best I’ve had in France as it was made with fresh milk & the coffee was a lovely flavour as well. There are renovations going on outside the railway station, we eventually located the bus station where we leave from tomorrow.
We went across to our platform & there was already a train there (approximately 20 mins before departure time) so I confirmed with someone onboard it was “our train”, an American couple with cases heard me say to Richard it was the train to Bayeux, I had been looking for a station attendant & when I spotted one I did confirm it was “our train”.
The couple had also been travelling for a period of time, ex-military & they’d been on two cruises, were at the Caen Memorial yesterday, she also volunteered with animals. They were staying in Bayeux, going on a “landings tour” the following day & didn’t know there was a tapestry in Bayeux!!
The journey was only 15mins & we headed straight for the museum. It was definitely busier that when we’d seen the English Bayeux at the museum in Reading for free!! There I had time to study the scenes, stitching etc, here I didn’t really get the chance.


Entry included an audio guide which was great information & explained what each scene represented but did mean you had to move quite quickly (I think that’s why they did it), not sure if the couple two in front had a different language, German, & that their audio took longer than ours or if they were just “behind” in the audio. There was a couple with two children in front of us who actually overtook the couple. At one stage a man overtook me but I did move past him, near the end there was a young boy who “pushed in” but I again went past him. The tapestry was wonderful, in a room that was dark & only the tapestry was lit & behind glass, the room was curved in a “U” shape. So pleased I’d had the chance to spend more time with the English one but so pleased to have at last seen this one. There was an exhibit upstairs which explained the history & had some information about the cloth & thread, there was also a film which was good. We then headed to the gift shop, being mindful I had to carry what I bought I only purchased a book which had a number of the scenes in as you weren’t able to take photos.
We the headed out to the Bayeux War Memorial & Cemetery, this is the largest WWII cemetery in France, it’s the resting place for more than 4,100 Commonwealth servicemen, the memorial commemorates 1,800 servicemen who died but don’t have known graves & their names are listed on the memorial, it was very moving.
We’d purchased a banana to eat on the way to the cemetery not realising it was so close to Bayeux, which we ate on the way, we’d also purchased pistachios which we ate on the way back. We then had a wander around the medieval town centre, found an ice cream shop & headed to the train station. We had a lovely day in Bayeux.
We stopped at the Monoprix on the way home & purchased some Turkey escalopes to have with our salad & baby kifler potatoes, it was delicious.