After our stay in Paris, we spent about five days visiting the French cities of Dinan and Bayeux. Other than seeing the D-Day beaches/sites, we had no real itinerary or reason for visiting these particular places. They were chosen mostly because they were relatively easy to visit by train, they had sights worth seeing and most importantly, they weren’t Paris.
Dinan
- The city is very cool and a good way to spend two days. It’s an old fort city that was built in the 13th-15th centuries and much of the buildings are original. It’s impressive to see a city and buildings twice as old as our country.
- I get the impression it is a tourist town for the French and some English. Most of the people there were French families on vacation and our English language tour was hosted by a French woman whose jokes were mostly about Anglo-French relations. In many cases, people were plain surprised we were American because they don’t get many in the area. There was even an English woman working in one of the shops who said we had great accents… imagine that.
- Very few people spoke any English and if they did, it was very limited. There was more than one occasion where our server spoke zero English and we had to stumble forward with our broken French. I’m sure it was piss poor, but we tried.
- If you’re there on a Thursday, be sure to check out the market. It’s like a giant flea market, but it also has a ton of local produce and meat available direct from the producer. It seemed many of the local used it as their grocery store and I couldn’t blame them, given both the breadth and quality of the selection. We ended up buying some cheese and dried meats to have with our baguette in a local park for lunch; it was great.
Bayeux and D-Day Sights
- This town, as the closest to the D-Day beaches, is extremely touristy. There were more Americans, but most of the tourists were British families. I can’t recommend going for any other reason than to use it as a base camp for sights.
- The Bayeux Tapestry was neat, but I can only suggest it as a time filler and not a destination. Your time is probably much better off spending a day to go see Mont Saint-Michel. We couldn’t get it to work with the schedule and our backpacks, but everyone talks about it.
- All of the D-Day sights are WAY more spread out than I had imagined. We sprung for a private tour guide and it was some of the best money we spent on the trip. Having a knowledgeable, personable guide who tailors the tour to your wishes and also serves as your chauffeur was great. I really can’t imagine being herded like cattle on other people’s timetables via massive tour buses.
- The American Cemetery was much larger than I expected and reminiscent of Arlington Cemetery. There were people from all over the world there to pay their respects and we were even lucky enough to meet an 80-something British veteran who landed on Gold Beach that fateful day. He was somewhat hard of hearing so conversation was minimal, but just being to see him in his medal-heavy uniform and say “thank you” was awesome.
- Visiting these places was not something I ever really had a desire to do. As much as I like to learn about military history, visiting was more because we were going to be in France and not because that was the reason we were in France. Having been, I’d recommend it to everyone. There is a certain sense of scale – human, material and geographic – that one cannot grasp without being there. Seeing the impossible-to-spot machine gun nest so perfectly positioned above the massive spans of Omaha Beach did a lot to re-frame my perspective.
A few other general observations about France:
- There are dogs on trains, in the stores and hanging out under the table of restaurants. At first I felt a little uncomfortable about this, but then I realized how I’d been trained by the American fear of germs and uncleanliness. In the end, everything about it seemed much more natural.
- No one wears shorts and/or flip-flops, even when it’s warm. Even when dressed casually, the French have a certain standard they abide by. (Interestingly, I originally typed flip-flops as flip-slops… so I guess that’s all I have to say about that.)
- 99% of the cars are hatchback and manual. I probably don’t have to tell you how cool I think that is.
- The French are obsessed with eating outside. We oversaw a woman walk her lunch on a tray about 20 yards into her backyard to eat alone. There was only one chair and she was very purposeful in taking each of the items off the tray before eating. Eating outside is definitely a part of life and since most real estate ads just had pictures of the patio, it’s clear that’s a selling point.
- The French are exceedingly polite. Whether it be the teenage girl sitting on a park bench saying “good evening” as we walked by, the bartender teaching us how to ask for matches in French or a random stranger pointing out I dropped 20 Euro in the kebab shop, they were warm and welcoming.
- Everyone who is interested in visiting Paris should seriously consider spending some time outside the city. It’s a nice city, but there is so much more to France. The slower (and cheaper!) lifestyle in the more rural areas is not only a good way to peer into the lives of the French, it’s also very refreshing.