Today we are heading for Genêts but as we have to pass fairly close to Bayeux, a visit to see the tapestry is too good an opportunity to miss, it is an enormous part of our national history after all. We leave via Dives-sur-Mer onto the D400 back to the A13, round Caen ring road onto the E46 to Bayeux a pretty simple journey. We park up just round he corner from where the museum should be and Mick and I walk off to see just how far it is while the others feed the twins. Mick has his England shirt on and some young French lads start laughing at him, I think Mick is upset but I think its funny. The museum is not far, it is literally, just round the corner from where we are.
Don't remember how much it was to get in but it was worth it, there are plenty of displays all to do with the tapestry and then there is the tapestry itself. You are supplied with one of them things bit like a large phone that you have to hold to your ear for a commentary on the tapestry. We could not take the pushchair in so we had to carry the twins and we were not allowed to take photos.
When we got out we were hungry but there is a very reasonable cafe just outside the museum so we all had lunch there.
This is when it was decided that we would also visit the war graves and that on the street map it was not that far but I pointed out we would have to walk back to the vehicles afterwards, thus making it a long way. The others are not bothered about this but we do have to get to the next site and this is all adding time on, so I decide I will go back for the van to drive round to the cemetery to meet the others there. At this Mick also decides that he will come with me and drive the car round.
We park up next the cemetery and before long the others show up, by doing this Mick and I have missed the cathedral. I do not have the words to explain what I felt walking round the graves but I was pleased that we did it. It's only a few days since the sixtieth anniversary of D Day celebrations and there is a joint wreath from the Queen and President Chirac.
On the way back to the vehicles I see the tanks outside a museum that Mick and I had also missed by driving round instead of walking.
The next part of our journey hits an immediate snag, there is a very low bridge on the D6 out of town to the A84 and it would mean driving back miles the way we came or using D roads rather than motorway. We eventually decide to use the D572 and run parallel to the A84 in the general direction we were heading as far as St-Lo and then across to the motorway via the D999. This is about the same distance as the route we were going to take but it took quite a lot longer (I believe the road around Bayeux has been greatly improved by a bypassed since 2004). From the motorway we go via the D973, onto the D911 to Genêts but can not find the site, this is probably because we are looking for a site on the coast with a view of Mont-Saint-Michel close to the village. Eventually I stop on our way out of this dead-end street we have been down and ask a young man coming out of a house for directions. Not only does he give directions but gets in his car and has us follow him to the site (I never did believed all that is said about the French but this degree of helpfulness did surprise me).
Genêts
Camping Les Coques d'Or
14, route du Bec d'Andaine - 50530 Genêts
The man on reception gives us directions to the pitches, that we can not follow so we end up in a different place that we should have (the field we should have been in was better). After we set up Mick keeps finding dog poo on his pitch, not a good thing.
Day seven or Day nine
Is it still the same motor home.. as per bottom photo
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