Bayeux is a great central location for visiting all 5 Normandy beaches, all the guide books say so. While the town itself wasn't bombed, it is easy to access all the major sites that were targeted. Easy, unless it is a major D-Day anniversary.

My last couple days did not go as I had originally planned; I ended up staying in Bayeux both days and not going to the beaches. Originally, I thought I'd hit the events in the various beach towns….parades, ceremonies, etc., but as I already mentioned, the traffic/road closures/lack of parking, etc were just too much. I did make one last attempt on the evening of the 5th. There were fireworks at 11pm all up and down the coast, and I thought this would be a great event for me to attend. Wrong. I headed out about 10pm when it is still very light out. The cars were parked on both sides of the road a solid mile before the beach. It was just nutty. Cars parked half on-half off narrow country roads (with no street lights), damn crazy Vespa drivers everywhere, and a bunch of drivers like me, who don't know what they are doing. On top of all that, there were people bicycling to the beaches on these roads. Biking! You could not have paid me enough money to bike these roads during the day, much less at night, for all the reasons I just mentioned. I think I have a pretty high risk tolerance, especially when traveling, but this was one of those rare occasions when I thought "this is a bad idea", and turned around and headed back to Bayeux.

So I spend the last couple days exploring Bayeux, which was really nice. I also visited the Bayeux cemetery, which is primarily a British cemetery, but it also includes other Allied troops, and even German soldiers.

On the early evening of the 5th, I went to a service at the Bayeux cathedral that was in commemoration of the anniversary. It was called Evensong. It was a little confusing; I couldn't figure out if it was an Anglican or a Catholic ceremony. It was in a Catholic church, the bishop participated, and there were some Catholic prayers It also had an Anglican priest, a British boy's choir, and some prayers that were not Catholic. I've since done some homework, and Evensong is a Anglican service, similar to Catholic Vespers (I've never been to Vespers, so I can't offer any comparisons). It was a neat service, including a couple military speakers.

On the evening of the 6th, I went back to the Cathedral for a concert in honor of the anniversary, and the singers were from Arizona. While the music was beautiful, a medical situation stole the show. No joke, the choir is singing parts from Requiem, when this older man calls out for help. He's assisting old lady (I had a perfect view of all this) who is slumped in her chair. Maybe it was the music, but I thought the woman might have died. Apparently she passed out, because a few people got her out of the chair and laid her on the ground. The choir finished, and one of the members, apparently a health care professional, came over to help. Mostly people just stood around the poor woman doing little to nothing…until she started vomiting on the (I'm guessing) very expensive and old oriental rug. That got people moving! This goes on for 10-15 minutes before an ambulance finally shows up. (not sure why it took so long, considering the hospital is about 2 blocks away.)

I'm now in a hotel at the airport; I have an 8am flight to kick off a long day of travel (Iceland, Boston, Columbus). It has been a great trip. I took a look at the Columbus weather today for the first time in over two weeks, and I was shocked to see it has been hot! The weather I had was unexpectedly cool; most days didn't get out of the 60s. There was a lot of rain, but mostly the drizzly type, not downpours. (The exception was the French Open day and the Normandy Tour day; those days saw some decent rain.) I doubt this will be my last trip to France, but I want to visit some other countries before taking another trip here.

Thanks for reading!