Day Twelve: Amsterdam, the Netherlands

This was the last day of my trip.  I returned to Amsterdam, where I began my journey through the Low Countries.  After twelve intense days of sightseeing I was ready for a slower paced day.  On this last day, I decided to take in one of the best museums in Amsterdam, the Van Gogh museum.  This was an excellent choice for my last day.  Not only is the museum beautiful in its physical design, but also it presents Van Gogh’s work in the greater context of how he developed as an artist and how he interacted with his peer artists.  Although I had studied Van Gogh in college, I had not really understood the network of relationships between all these artists:  Pissarro, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, etc. The museum does an excellent job of creating the context artistically and personally of Van Gogh’s work and his overall significance in shaping modern 20^th century art.  The museum has such a vast collection of both his work and his contemporaries’ work that it can highlight and historicize his work in a very information way.  Great museum and a super way to end an fabulous trip through the Low Countries and Normandy!

Day Eleven: Amiens, France

Amiens Cathedral

Interior Nave Amiens Cathedral

Today I visited the city of Amiens, in the Picardie region of Northern France.  The chief highlight of the city was the huge Gothic cathedral, which is the size of a football field.  The cathedral is very well preserved and beautiful.  While visiting the cathedral, I learned that Gothic cathedrals were very colorful back when they were built.  The statuary was painted with bright, vivid colors.  At Christmas the city puts on a laser lightshow that shows how the cathedral looked back during the Medieval period. 

Gargoyles Amiens Cathedral

Amiens

WWI Memorial

Amiens also has a strong Flemish character to its architecture, reminding me of the Low Countries, with small canals running through the heart of the city.  It’s obvious that Picardie, the Northeast region of France, was closely tied to Flanders and its wealthy wool merchants. 

The surrounding farmland was very lush and rich.  There were many WWI monuments, cemeteries and memorials.  They are still finding unexploded ordinance from the Battle of the Somme, which was fought right outside Amiens.  Over a million men died or suffered casualties during the battle, but today the farmland where the battle was fought looks so peaceful.  It’s hard to imagine the terrible carnage that happened here during WWI.

Day Ten: Bayeux and Rouen

British WWII Memorial and Cemetery

Before I left Bayeux, I made a stop at two important memorials:  one a memorial and cemetery for British soldiers who died during the Allied Normandy invasion in WWII and second, a memorial dedicated to the journalists and photographers who have been killed while covering various conflicts around the world, dating back to WWII.  Both of these memorials were deeply moving to me.  The British memorial and cemetery was very different from the American cemetery and memorial at Omaha beach.  It was less dramatic and much simpler in many ways, but each grave was carefully tended, with flowers planted at each tombstone.

Journalist killed in 1947

The journalist/photographers’ memorial was a lesson in twentieth-century warfare.  There is a stone tablet for each year with the names of every journalist and photographer who was killed in that year.  As you move through the decades you can trace the history from today’s wars in the Middle East, to the Balkan wars, to Central American and African conflicts, to the wars of Vietnam and Southeast Asia, Korea and finally WWII.  In each year you can tell by the names of those killed where most of the conflicts took place.  It’s strange to see such a stark record of war.  Disturbing.           

Fallen Journalists Memorial Bayeux

Detail from Rouen Cathedral

Interior of Rouen Cathedral

Next I drove to Rouen to visit to the beautiful Gothic cathedral in the center of the old part of town.  Monet made this cathedral famous by painting it in every different variation of natural light.  The cathedral was heavily damaged by Allied bombing during WWII, but has been mostly restored, although that work is still incomplete.  The cathedral houses the heart of Richard the Lionhearted and contains beautiful statuary and carvings inside and out.  

Memorial to Jean D'Arc

Close to the cathedral is the square where Joan d’Arc was burned at the stake.  To honor her memory, there is a very modern church built at the same site by the famous architect Corbusier.  It is a striking contrast to the “old-town” which surrounds the square.  

Detail from the Plague Cemetery

After communing with Joan’s spirit I walked to the “plague” cemetery, which is actually an ossuary where the remains of plague victims were buried in a mass grave.  Today an art school surrounds the stone courtyard that lies on top of the ossuary, but all around the edges of the courtyard are carved wooden skulls, serving as a reminder of the grisly earlier function of the courtyard.  Walking around the old part of town it was clear how Rouen had functioned as the wealthy commercial center of the Anglo-Norman Kings’ domains in France.  There are reminders everywhere of the historical roots of this old city.

Day Nine: Mont Saint Michel and Caen, France

Abbey Mont Saint Michel

Cathedral of Saine Etienne

In the morning I drove down to Mont Saint Michel, first stopping in Avranches to see the abbey from a distance and then driving to the foot of the abbey for a closer look.  The morning was cold and rainy, but the abbey was still a sight to see rising out of the marshland.  The tide was low so you could drive to the foot of the abbey.  The crowds of people rushing to see the abbey were impressive. 

Tomb of William the Conqueror

Next I turned back north and went to Caen to see more of the city’s medieval sites.  First on the agenda was the Cathedral of Saint Etienne, built by William the Conqueror, who is buried there.  Adjacent to the cathedral is the Abbey des Hommes, which doubles today as the city hall of Caen.  It was Saturday, so there were many couples dressed in their finest, getting married--an interesting juxtaposition of old and new.  Then it was onto the castle built by William, the ruins of which serve as the home to Caen’s art museum. 

On the way back to Bayeux, I visited the Chateau Fontaine-Henry, which is a steeply roofed chateau that dates back to the late medieval period.  The house has been added onto many times, but it has remained in private hands down to this day.  Although the chateau is open to the public as a museum it is also still a private home.  It was interesting the see the family photographs amidst the treasured works of art and furniture in this lovely space.   The owners also had beautiful and friendly black labs.

Day Eight: Normandy D-Day beaches and Bayeux

Sightseeing today began in Arromanches where the Allies built a harbor to supply the Normandy invasion.  It was impressive to see the remains of many of the mulberries (large concrete, football-field size chunks of concrete) still at sea.  The WWII museum in Arromanches was very helpful with large models of the harbor and the way it worked. 

Next was the American cemetery at Omaha beach.  The visitor center there had moving displays focused on the narrative of the war, the Normandy campaign and individual accounts of the many of the men who fought and many who died in Normandy.  Walking among the graves was a somber experience.  The weather was cold and rainy, somehow appropriate for the day.  The anniversary of D-Day was just a few days ago, so it is easy to imagine a similar day fifty-seven years ago. 

After seeing the cemetery I drove down to the beach, where I walked out to the waterline.  The beach was huge.  Walking on the sand gave me a strong feeling of the challenge that faced the men on D-Day.  Before today I had not realized how deep the beach was.  Another thing I noticed today was how firm the sand was—that would have made it easier for soldiers to fight.  This is a beach you could run on if you had to. 

Last on this day was a trip to Point Du Hoc, which was very interesting, a lunar landscape created by the aerial bombing of the German pillboxes (gun placements.)  The craters created by the Allied bombing were huge, and it was bizarre to see French school children running in and out of them as though the crater field was a playground. 

After the beaches it was time to head back to Bayeux and pay a visit to the town cathedral and the famed Bayeux Tapestry.    The cathedral was built in the beautiful, classic Norman/Gothic style with huge flying buttresses.  It is supposed to the second largest cathedral in France after Notre Dame in Paris.  Close by the cathedral is the museum that houses the Bayeux Tapestry, which tells the story of the Norman conquest of England in 1066.  The tapestry was amazing.  There is no way to replicate the visual impact of how long the tapestry is--much longer than walking the length of a football field.   It is also beautiful in the artistry of the stitching.  Having taught about the battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest for many years, it was wonderful to finally see the tapestry for myself.

Day Seven: Caen and Falaise, France

I visited the World War II museum in Caen today and learned things I did not know before about the French Resistance.  There were excellent displays on the D-Day and Normandy campaigns. This should put me in good shape for seeing the Normandy beaches tomorrow. 


Next I traveled to Falaise, birthplace of William the Conqueror, where the castle in which he was born still stands.  The castle was heavily bombed during the WWII Allied Normandy invasion and it has been rebuilt in places; restoration work still continues today.   There is a new ‘keep’ that gives the visitor a good feel for a medieval fort/castle built in the Norman style.  Inside the keep, the walls were high; it would have been very difficult to assail. 

Day Six: Honfleur, France

 Honfleur is a beautiful old village, dating back to the Middle Ages, that sits on the mouth of the river Seine, with a distinctive style that is encapsulated in its cathedral.  Unlike many cathedrals built during the high Middle Ages, the town’s cathedral was built like the hull of a wooden ship flipped upside down.  Here the local economy was tied to fishing.   The streets are still narrow and cobblestone, difficult to navigate with a car, but ideal for pedestrians.  Amazingly, Honfleur was not destroyed by WWII fighting.  A great day.