Today was the day to visit Bayeux, obviously to see the tapestry, but also other delights which might present themselves.
We started with a look at the cathedral. This was fairly interesting and the crypt contains some medieval paintings which Dad spent some time trying to photograph in the poor light where flash is not permitted.
Moving on to the tapestry, the good news was that there wasn’t too much of a queue. The tapestry is well displayed – indeed probably rather better than when Dad last saw it more than 40 years ago. The bad news was that the audio guides with which everyone was supplied didn’t have a pause button. For Dad this was of course a complete disaster as he wanted to look at every detail and was soon well behind the commentary. At this point he just gave up with the guide. Mum and Sophia were rather cleverer. They followed along with the guide and then walked all the way back round the 70m of tapestry to look at it again.
Medieval painting Bayeux cathedral
The Bayeux town museum was in a similar vein to the one in Caen but not as interesting. There was a reasonable selection of paintings, but they were all rather second rate. At one point Dad’s eye was caught by one that looked like the work of his favourite, Hans Holbine the Younger but when he scurried up to it he found a notice saying it was by one of his assistants. It was however still probably the best painting there. The other highlight worth seeing was a wonderfully decorated old chapel at one end of the museum.
One final point of note it that Bayeux had undoubtedly the most expensive parking of the trip.