The day began with an alarm set for 6:00 am. After packing a small back-sack quickly and jotting down some helpful notes about bus schedules and walking directions, I left my cozy room and took the metro to Gare St. Lazare. (Incidentally, this is the train station Monet liked to paint.) There was plenty of time before my train to find the information desk and unfortunately confirm that yes, I would have to transfer in Caen and yes, I had only seven minutes between trains to accomplish that feat. I was rather worried, but decided to do my best. I'd read online that the trains between Caen and Bayeux run a few times an hour, so I figured I could still recover if I missed one.
So my ride out to Caen passed pleasantly enough, in large part because I immediately fell asleep upon boarding. I was very alert by the time the fateful transfer was imminent, and it turned out to be just about as simple as possible. There are only six platforms or so in the Caen station, and each one has a very helpful monitor listing the locations of all upcoming trains. So I zipped down to the next track and climbed aboard the waiting Basse-Normandie train. Or Haute-Normandie. I didn't pay too much attention and then once aboard of course I couldn't see the writing on the sides of the cars. Anyway.
This ride was only about fifteen minutes, and once in Bayeux I had some time to kill before catching the bus to the beach. As per my plan, I struck out to find the museum housing the Bayeux tapestry, a 70 meter long roll of cloth depicting somebody conquering somebody else and one of them was named Harold. Oh yeah, and the other guy was William. He was a Norman, and he won, so the Normans made a tapestry! The museum was easy to find - I joined a stream of British tourists, the predominant variety of tourist in Bayeux.
At the museum, I received a little audioguide player and the voice of a British man told me the story of the tapestry as I walked along its length. I liked the story and remember it better than I would have remembered a history-book description, although I still didn't manage to put all the pieces together; I just read the Wikipedia article and learned that the climactic battle scene was the Battle of Hastings. Oooh. That took place in 1066! Look at me with my historical knowledge.
After the Battle of Hastings, I caught a bus.
We went rolling off into the beautiful Norman countryside and soon enough fetched up at the beach! Hurrah for the ocean! I woke up in the heart of Paris and was standing on the shores of the Atlantic by noon.
I spent a while enjoying the crashing waves and grainy sand and the rivulets of tide-water running back to the shore. Although the morning had been chilly, things started warming up nicely while I ate my snack of paprika-Pringles (they taste like barbecue-Pringles).
But this particular beach has more than one impression to leave on its visitors, because this was Omaha Beach, invaded by the Allies on D-Day during WWII and eventually taken after staggering casualties. After my initial joy at being at a beach had subsided a bit, I tried to imagine the sights and sounds on the beach that day, and (luckily for my mental comfort) failed utterly. Even the beginnings of imagination left me somber and heavy-feeling. So much humanity ended.
Then I turned my attention to the green hills beyond the beach. In a stunningly ironic contrast, the beach and countryside today epitomize peace and tranquility as the sun gently warms the sands and tall grasses:
But even in such a quiet atmosphere, a closer look gives not-too-subtle hints of the historical violence. Littering the green hillsides are the crumbling concrete remnants of German bunkers used during their defense of the beach. I walked inside some of them.
In the little time I had remaining before the bus came through again, I hurried and found the American cemetery. It just goes on and on. So much humanity ended.
The scale of the lives lost is beyond my visceral comprehension. The beach and cemetery made me feel a heavy, heavy sorrow and a deep historical awe and regret, but I'm glad to have seen them. They're important to remember.
So the bus returned to Bayeux, and I had a few hours to explore the town before my train left. It's a pretty little town, moderately tourist-ized but still retaining its own identity, as far as I, a tourist, could tell. I learned that it was founded by the Romans in the first century CE. That's an old town.
Lovely cathedral, lovely flowers, awful fish and chips, and then it was time to meet the train. The rides back went smoothly, including the crucial transfer in Caen, and I stepped off the train at St. Lazare a bit before 7:30 pm. Day-trip victory!
Before setting out, I was a bit worried because I was tired already and traveling alone. But everything went either according to plan or slightly better than planned, and I was never truly nervous about getting stuck outside of Paris. I did feel that I had to be constantly alert, since there was no one to catch me in a mistake, and constant vigilance is draining. But I suppose even there I had a bit of help; it turned out that a particular young Italian man had independently planned an itinerary almost identical to mine, and we kept running into each other on various forms of public transportation. Although we didn't have much language in common, we were able to work together to figure out things like the bus stops and routes. Thank you, unknown Italian!
So it was a good day, a beach day, a historical day, and above all a long day. I came back to my room and stopped moving for a while. And thus ended the Excursion.
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