Day 13 August 28, 2008
On our second day of Normandy Apple Invasion, we left Honfleur after eating a nice breakfast with a table full of English people. They were very funny and made us laugh, like English people normally do.
The goal of the day was to wander through the Pays d'Auge, the area where cider SHOULD come from. There's an actual cider route, but we made our own path by way of Deauville down to Lisieux and then towards Caen where we stopped at a peaceful looking chateau in Crevecoeur-en-Auge. It's an old estate with a completely wooden dovecot still intact. Don't even ask me what a dovecot is.
I know what apples are! There was an apple orchard on the property and Cylinda feasted there. See:
There were school children running around on a scavenger hunt, some old people and us. It was great.
We moved on to Bayeux and arrived mid-afternoon at our dorm-room sized hotel room. The front-desk people were friendly, though, so it's not a knock on them. One of them gave me a short French lesson and even knowing we were Americans, spoke to us in French. People like that go high on my list. We stayed at Hotel Churchill on the pedestrian street and I'd recommend it as a good base for a Normandy trip.
One must-see item is the Tapestry. Yes, it's that awesome that it gets to be THE Tapestry, similar to me being THE Yen, if you know what I mean. I know you do. It's a long piece that tells about the Battle of Hastings and how William the Conqueror became King of England. Sounds more exciting than NFL football, right? Seriously, it's very impressive with the attached museum and film all so well done. There were no photos allowed so nothing but your own eyes can really witness this piece of history. It's just very, very old (1077?) and in great shape.
I don't normally mention food in France, but here in Bayeux, we had the best dinner of our trip. It was at Le Pommier and my entire meal was made of apples (and some duck). It was so awesome, I'd go back to Bayeux just to eat there (and see the Tapestry - man, that was cool).