Fay 49 - Tapesseries et bière 🍺

Tapestries and beer 🍺

We woke to the gentle sound of French radio playing in the milking sheds.  Not sure if it was for the benefit of the cows or the farmer but either way it wasn't a problem.

   The Bayeux Tapestry  is actually an embroidered cloth nearly 230 feet long and  20 inches wide. It depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, led by William, Duke of Normandy challenging Harold II, King of England, and resulting in the Battle of Hastings and Harold getting shot in the eye with an arrow....as we all know 🤓. It is thought to date to the 11th century, within a few years of the battle.

    The cloth consists of 58 scenes with text in  Latin embroidered on linen with coloured woollen yarn. Historians have argued over the centuries as to who commissioned it, where it was actually made ( they do agree it was made in sections by different people) and who actually owned it. For many, many years it was displayed for 2 weeks each the year in the cathedral in Bayeux for the (mainly illiterate) common folk to look upon it and see the history displayed in pictures. 

   Between the  14th and 16th century it was pretty much hidden away, put in storage, nobody really knows but then during the French Revolution in 1792, the tapestry was confiscated as public property to be used for covering military wagons as it was just a long bit of fancy cloth  🙄. It was rescued from a wagon by a local lawyer who stored it in his house until the troubles were over, whereupon he sent it to the city administrators for safekeeping.

  The  tapestry itself, the workmanship and the story it tells both in pictures and bits of Latin is actually quite good. The scenes are arranged in 3 bands. The top band is pretty much just decorative  filled with birds, beasts, fish and scenes from fables, agriculture, and hunting. The middle band is the story and the bottom band shows 'extra' stuff referring to the scene above. In the case of the battles its heads, arms and corpses 😯.  Historians have been gleamed a lot of useful information about the period in history, armour, weapons, clothing even types of newly invented farm implements that had not been recorded before.  The picture of Halley's Comet, which appears in the upper border (scene 32), is the first known picture of this comet recorded 😯.

    Of course its a massive tourist attraction these days. Strick rules of no photos, flash photography and even talking for some reason. Maybe its so you don't miss any 

of your audio commentary or maybe its just because your in a museum, who knows. 🤔

Bayeux's other attraction apart from tea rooms and sea food restaurants is the cathedral. Originally built in the 10th century then rebuilt in the Gothic style in the 12th century its taken 700 years to complete😯. Its complex, huge and extremely well built. The craftsmanship of the stonework is very impressive. An added bonus was that you were allowed down into the crypt under the main alter. Not been down one of these before 🙃.

Time to move on.  We were heading to Honfleur almost 2hrs away to meet up with an old friend of mine from the British Motorcycle Riders Club days. Honfleur is a very populare place within easy reach of the UK ferries and consequently the huge campervan site on the riverbanks gets filled up fast .

 Kenny had been valiantly defending a pitch next to him for us on the river bank for most of the afternoon with nothing more than a teaspoon and a wet tea towel .... "this is taken, he's nipped out to get fuel"..."nipped"...."gone out for petrol"...."no, I'm not using it for my table and chairs my mate is pitched here"...."do I speak English 😡?.... your in a British van, you can see my number plate, are you taking the ####?" We arrived with only 3 pitches left that we could see. "Afternoon, is this pitch taken mister?"..."#### off don't you start!"

     With both vans parked on the outer limits of our pitch markers we had a decent sized party area inbetween. Time to crack open the beers and get the chairs out. I would have happily sat there all night, drinking and grazing and catching up on old times but Kenny had other ideas. "Theres a place down the road I thought we'd go and eat at, Oncle Scotts".

     I'd noticed this place as we drove up 😅. Its a chain of cowboy themed (supposedly) American diners which are spread over most of Northern France. The beer was good, we impressed our waiters by ordering the 1lt 'ernormo's' - big boys beers,  we got the impression not many people did. The burgers were big, tasty and a generous 'slab' of Camembert cheese on the cheese burgers. Surprised to be asked how we would like our burgers cooked😯, rare, medium or well done. Nobody was brave enough to try the WTF burger 🥴.

So, after an enjoyable evening in a American diner in France with chinese staff, listening to Ibiza music drinking German beer with a Harley Davidson hung on the wall we retired to our party pitch for more beers and nibbles untill the sun had truly set.