Carolyn's Various Travels: Bayeux Tapestry and nuclear submarine

We decided to make the most of our last day. We left Caen early and stopped in Bayeux to see the famous Bayeux tapestry. Its a 230 ft long tapestry of wool embroidery on linen. It's over 1000 years old and depicts William the Conquerer's conquest of England. It has 70+ frames of story, starting with when old King Edward, who was childless, sent his nobleman Harold to William in Normandy to tell him that William was the heir apparent. Apparently when Edward died, at the last minute he chose Harold as heir instead. Harold held the throne for about 9 months before William invaded England and eventually chopped his head off and claimed the throne.

This is the scene of Edward's death and burial. The large box is the casket.

This is William on a military campaign (before going to England) He was in the area of Mont St Michel and crossing the hazardous sands at low tide. There are horses foundering in the quick sands that are there.

These are the workmen assembling a fleet of ships to sail William's forces to England to claim the crown.

They are loading supplies onto the ships - suits of armor, arrows.

They sail across the Channel.

And disembark. You can even see the horse stepping out of the boat with one foot still in the boat.

The bishop (?) accompanied William but could not shed blood, so he took a mace with him so he could knock someone senseless if attacked (ha). He is the figure second from the left.

They set fire to towns.

And marched on Harold.

The forces clashed.

And heads rolled (literally in the margins).

And Harold is killed.

There was more to the museum, but we had a timetable to keep to get Delaney to the port in Cherbourg and get me back to Paris to turn in the rental car.

It was all I could do to bypass the cathedral in Bayeux, but the exterior was beautiful (especially with the flower baskets on the street).

Our final stop was the Cite de la Mer maritime museum at the port. They had a full inside tour of a decommissioned Redoutable class French nuclear sub. They were active from the 1960's to the 1990's. It was a beast!

Engine room. The audioguide did a good job talking about all the measures they took to make the sub run as quietly as possible, including the hertz level (?) of the electricity. Everything was mounted on an additional layer of material not against the hull to reduce noise as well.

The miles and miles of duct work, wires and pipes was astounding.

The one thing they did not leave in was the nuclear power plant. They cut the sub in two, pulled out the reactor and put it back together empty in that space.