Trashing Europe: Normandie and Picardie Regions, France

NORMANDIE

We went to see the Bayeux Tapestry in Bayeux. It is 72 metres long and tells the story of William the Conqueror becoming King of England by beating Harold. It doesn't have words, just pictures. It is 1000 years old and was really cool. We had audioguides that told us what each panel meant.

They didn't let us take photos of it because it is so old and is kept behind glass and in a darkish room.

At the Tapestry Museum, they had a church that was so old only a part of it is left and this was behind glass.

Tapestry Museum

The last bit of the old church

The Bayeux Cathedral

Bayuex also had a Cathedral which was pretty.

We visited the Cathedral in Chartes. This is famous for having two styles, roman and Gothic. It was so huge we couldnt fit it in one picture. Chartes was a very pretty town with streets and houses from Medievel times.

Chartes

Chartes Cathedral

Honfleur is a beautiful port town. It was very pretty and had very old, very narrow streets and an old wooden church.

Honfleur

Mont St Michel is an island fortress with a huge Abbey. It was also used as a prison for many years. The British tried to take Mont St Michel 100's of years ago but failed because the tides come in really quickly and drowned them. It also has quicksand in the bay when the tides are out. We decided not to go out on the bay.

Mont St Michel

The Streets of the Island

Looking over the Bay when the tide was out.

Inside the Abbey, the eating room.

Mont St Michel

PICARDIE

We stayed at Amiens which has another Cathedral and lots of shops. It was mum's birthday so we explored all the shops. Amiens has an ANZAC hotel and in the region of Picardie which includes the SOMME, many villages have Australian names restaurants and streets and really like Australians because we helped them a lot during World War One.

Amiens Cathedral

We visited the Australian War memorial and the Military Cemetary in Villers-Bretonneux. The memorial has the names of 11,000 Australian soldiers who died but their bodies were never found. There are another 3000 unidentified soldiers and lots of other graves. There is also an Adelaide Cemetary where more soldiers fromAustralia, New Zealand, Canada and Britain are buried.

One of the Military Cemetaries

The Australian Monument and the Australian Military Cemetary.

The Soldiers graves from the top of the monument.

We visited Samara, the pre-historic village. They have archeologists who talk to you about how we developed from Cro-Magnon man (Neanderthanal man), how we learned to make fire, then agriculture, then metal swords and bowls and things, right up to when the romans came to France. We could also do basket making, weaving and other ancient things like they did before machines. We made lamps. We had a rock and a piece of flint and had to chip at the rock until it was roundish, then make a well in the top to put wax in. It took ages.