I am enjoying your descriptions of your trip so very much--your itinerary
follows closely the lace "tour" I took many years ago. BTW, One of the best
references I ever found on the Bayeaux Tapestry is an old National Geographic
magazine dated August, 1966, vol. 130, No.2,(a lucky find at a local library
booksale) which contains photographs of the entire tapestry in color, with
short explanations of each section , and a narrative about the Norman Conquest.
Possibly your local library can access this, when you get home?
--
Doris O'Neill in Chicago area
-------------- Original message --------------
From: Alice Howell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> OIDFA Trip Days 6-8 Bayeux
>
> Took an early train out of Alencon to Caen where I changed trains to Bayeux.
> Hotel was, for me, a half hour walk from the train station but I found it. I
> didn't know it at the time, but it was across the street from the back door
> of
> Hotel du Doyen (now a museum) that sometimes has lace exhibits. My first walk
> in town located the post office, cash machine, church, and Bayeux Tapestry.
>
> The Tapestry was one of my main goals of this trip. I had been reading books
> about it for a year so knew it's history, story, etc, quite well. I was both
> intrigued and appalled by the presentation. I was excited to actually see it
> in
> person. However...it is a number one tourist attr action like Disneyland, and
> attracts almost as many people. There were literally hoards coming through
> the
> exhibit. To move the crowds along, they gave every person a tape player thing
> to hold to the ear with the story. It took this tape about 20 minutes to tell
> the story. If a person moved from numbered panel to numbered panel with the
> story, they moved past the panels with very little time to really look at
> them.
> For a school kid, it was probably all the time and story he would be
> interested
> in. But for a serious study of the tapestry, it was the pits.
>
> It began with setting the scene and told about panal 1. Then it said "scenes
> 2
> & 3 show....... Scene 4 is....and Scene 5 is...." A person had to almost run
> past scenes 2-3-4 to be at 5 when it told about it.
>
> I found a Pause button on the player, so would stop and start the story as I
> slowly moved along. When a bus load of people came through in a herd, I would
> sit in a window seat at the back of the aisle and wait until the crowd
> lessened.
> Many of the details of the story were left out of the recorded story. I'm
> sure
> it took me well over an hour to view the length of the tapestry.
>
> I had three days in Bayeux, so I went back the third day and went through it
> again. That time the Pause button would not work on my player so I just let
> it
> run itself out and ignored it. I spent all the time I wanted on each panel,
> letting the crowds by and making use of the slack time between groups. Bus
> loads of school kids came through. It was prime end-of-school excursion time
> and Bayeux is a popular destination. This second visit let me concentrate on
> details that I missed the first time. Thousand year old embroideries are very
> rare.
>
> At the first visit, I was given a brochure that I put in my purse. That first
> evening, I read it. It was promoting a display of the Longest Embroidery in
> the
> World -- made in the year 2000 in Friesland, Netherlands. It was in the
> chapel
> next door to the Tapestry. The next day I had to seek it out. It was a series
> of sampler panels made by many different people...all on the same fabric and
> with the identical embroidered borders so they made a continuous strip when
> sewn together. The center of each panel was entirely up to the embroiderer.
> He/she had to design whatever they wanted. It was to celebrate Friesland,
> it's
> people, and it's history. A panel was made for each village with the village
> name and shield, then all the panels from that village were attached. Then
> the
> next village, and the next. I think there were over 200 panels with a wide
> variety of styles and subjects.
>
> The story of each panel was in a la rge notebook. I took the time to read
> each
> story as I looked at the panels. Since there were no printed brochures of the
> panels that I could easily buy, I tried to take lots of pictures...at least
> of
> the panels that I thought were most interesting. If you ever read of the
> Friesland Sampler or Embroidery being displayed near you, try to see it. It's
> well worth some effort. My third day in town I went back to this exhibit
> again,
> and took more pictures.
>
> Before my trip, someone on the List said that there was supposed to be a lace
> display at the Hotel du Doyen. My Tapestry ticket got into that museum also,
> so
> I went. I found out that the museum rotates displays on lace, art, and
> pottery.
> This time it was antique pottery made in that town. The only lace was a
> Chantilly lappet that was draped over a huge ceramic pot, for some unknown
> reason.
>
> I searched ou t the lace school/workshop I had heard of in Bayeux. It was a
> small store close to the chathedral. There were 3 ladies working at pillows,
> and the owner. Few spoke English, but they let me look around. There were
> some
> lace items for sale. And some books. I bought a pendant/necklace that looked
> interesting. They also let me take pictures when I held up my camera and
> asked
> "Photo?"
>
> The next day I headed for a lace/embroidery place that was open only on Wed
> and
> Sat. This was Wednesday. As I got near it, I found the adjacent street was
> closed off for a street market. It was fun walking then length of this street
> and looking at everything. After I visited the lace place, I came back to the
> street fair and got a small coin purse and some strawberries.
>
> The Lace/Embroidery school was a small shop on a side street where people
> could
> take lessons in bobbin lace, embro idery and hardanger. You could get a
> lesson
> for an hour, a day, or ongoing lessons each week or whenever you came in.
> There
> was very little English among these ladies but they let me look, and take
> pictures. I bought a booklet describing the Bayeux Embroidery Stitch used in
> the tapestry.
>
> I also visited the Musee Memorial de la Bataille de Normandie, and the Bayeux
> cathedral -- smaller than Chartres. It has some very old frescos on the
> ceilings in the vault under the main church. Bayeux was a pleasant place to
> visit...especially after the main crowds of the day had gone away.
>
> In Bayeux, as well as Brussels and Brugge, there were tourist shops with lace
> for sale. Most of it was imported from China, but mixed in were some locally
> made laces, usually small items like greeting cards or hankies. Some antique
> lace was available at a good price.
>
> Da ys 6-8 No lace collection, but two embroideries and church number 2.
>
> Alice in Oregon
>
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