Easter Sunday & Monday

After a full day of touring D-Day my parents and I took no time to recuperate. We had so many other things to see in the north of France! As we were staying in Bayeux, our first stop was the Bayeux tapestry, an embroidered cloth that depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England. Eri and I studied it during our art history class freshman year, and it was so much more impressive than I thought it would be. While walking the 70m length I came to the realization that this tapestry could be an entire course, not just one week!

We then headed up to Saint-Malo, a walled-port city in Brittany, where Jacque Cartier, who is credited with discovering Canada, sailed from. The Old Town was originally built on a rocky island, giving the inhabitants control of both the sea and the trade route. This strategic position gave rise to pirates and in the 17 & 18th centuries piracy grew rampant as the King of France allowed the pirates to go after enemy ships in return for a percent of the profit. Saint-Malo was heavily bombed and destroyed during WWII but during the post war years it was painstakingly reconstructed to an exact replica of its pre-war construction.

On the walls of Saint-Malo

After lunch at Saint-Malo, we drove back into Normandy to visit Mont Saint-Michel, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Mont Saint-Michel is a Gothic style Benedictine abbey dedicated to Saint Michael and a small village that was built around it. The entire abbey is located on a small island around 600 meters from the shore and its surrounding bay is home to the highest tides in Europe. The tides would help protect the abbey during times of invasion as the enemy would get caught during the tides and would be brought out to sea. Mont-Saint Michel was my favorite stop on Sunday and although cloudy and overcast, it was absolutely stunning and a huge architectural feat.

Saint-Michel from the shore looking up

I had Easter Monday off since it is a national holiday here, which allowed us to explore some more of Northern France. We started by driving up the coast and stopped at Honfleur, a beautiful little port city. The buildings lining the port were either painted in different colors or covered in slate shingles. While exploring the port area we stumbled upon a plaque in honor of Samuel de Champlain who sailed from Honfleur on his exhibitions to North America and Canada!

Honfleur Port

Our last stop before I headed home was Étretat, famous for its cliffs. Two cliffs with naturally made arches bookend the town. Falaise d'Aval, is the larger of the two and Falaise d'Amont. Falaise d'Aval (which kind of looks like an elephant's trunk!) was made famous by Monet who painted the cliff more than once. After walking on the rocky beach my parents and I climbed the steep stairs to get to the top of the Falaise d'Amont cliff. The top provided great views of the two Falaises and the sea. It was the perfect end to our weekend!

With Falaise d'Aval behind us

On top of a cliff with Falaise d'Amont