Paris to Bayeux

Sunday July 28th: As usual, I am writing this on Sunday, but it covers the adventures for yesterday.  Not much an adventure but we had some challenges, which all went in our favor.  Overall, we traveled from Paris to Bayeux, which is in Normandy on the northwest coast of France.  The town of Bayeux is an important tourist destination and famed for the Bayeux Tapestry and its cathedral - more on that tomorrow or later today.

Flashback to Friday evening -- here is where we had dinner and how we "saw"  bits of the opening ceremony to the Olympics.

Italian restaurant -- excellent 

Watching the Opening Ceremony from the sidewalk.....

There is a athlete boat on the TV screen.....

Yesterday after a disturbed sleep (worrying about potential travel complications), we were up and out of the "Luxury Studio design by KENZO with Jacuzzi" (the name of the apartment we spent the last 3 days in) early.  Fortunately, the overnight rain had stopped and we dragged our luggage to the Bastille Metro Station.  A kind passerby helped  us buy tickets, traveling first  on Line 1, then changing to Line 14 for the Gare de Saint-Lazare.  

Overall, the metro and train stations are old style, with few escalators and lots of stairs.  Surprisingly, one enters the Bastille Station by going down under ground, then climbing up to the platform, which is situated above the Arsenal Boat Basin.  The change over to Line 14 at Chatelet involved more stairs.  But the trains came every 5 and 3 minutes respectively.  After getting to Saint-Lazare, we exited the Metro area and escalated up numerous levels to the top of the regional train station where the boarding tracks originated.  Being uncertain when we would actually get to the station and as advised by the train company, via the internet, I bought tickets for an 11 am departure on the high speed train to Bayeux.  We arrived in time to have caught an 10 am train but changing tickets was not possible.  So, we sat in the train station, had coffee and pastries, and watched the other travelers and occasionally a squad of army soldiers carrying rifles stroll by.  The mascot for the Olympics came by also (Betsy thinks it is slightly creepy).

What is the mascot called?

 Fortunately the French arson attacks of the previous day seemed to have no effect on the train services and we boarded our train on time and departed the station without delay.  The ride was uneventful.  We arrived at Bayeux at around 2 pm and walked about 1 mile to our hotel for the next two nights.  The Grand Hotel Luxembourg is very nice (four stars).  After leaving our luggage, we went off to get crepes (recommended by the hotel clerk) -- excellent meal, rich and savory.

After lunch, we strolled around town, stopping at the Cathedral and then walking to the entrance for the Bayeux Tapestry, checking out logistics.  We returned to the hotel and went to its pool to cool down and await the arrival of the rest of the bicycling gang -- Leslie and Dennis (L&D) and Jan and Ron (J&R) arrived next and brought market-purchased happy-hour snacks.  They had heard from Tyrae and Brent (T&B) who wondered if we could wait for them until after 7 pm to go for dinner.  (Tyrae and Brent had traveled from Munich, via Paris, so were having a very long day.)  With the snacks we were fine waiting.  

When they arrived, we went to a recommended restaurant, which was full for the evening.  We went next door to a bar and had drinks and tapas.

After dinner, some of us went to the Cathedral for  a light and music show -- see the photos.  The show started after dark, 10:45 this time of year, and lasted about 15 minutes, with repetitions that ran till midnight.  

The Cathedral before the show while we were waiting for it to start.

Ditto.

The show, accompanied with classical music.

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Ditto.