Bayeux and its tapestry

At 10 a.m., the sliding door clicks shut and we cruise out of Caen on the N13. Fifteen minutes later the spire of Bayeux lifts above timbered facades: a Romanesque nave reworked in the 1200s, the watermill on the Aure slapping its paddles, and the museum holding the so‑called Bayeux Tapestry—70 meters of linen narrating 1066, stitch by stitch. A detail many miss: the captions are in plain, almost schoolbook Latin, and several farming vignettes quietly log Anglo‑Norman life, from ploughshares to the movement of stars.

The plan is easy to flex: hotel pick‑up in Bayeux or Caen, then the vehicle at your disposal for a half‑day, with precise drop‑offs at the museum and the cathedral while your driver waits. He can add a five‑minute detour to the Saint‑Laurent washhouse or to spacious Place Charles‑de‑Gaulle, a wartime clearance that spared the old town in 1944. In Bayeux with a dedicated driver, you focus on seeing and tasting—perhaps a stop for farm Camembert at Gérault—while the car repositions a few hundred meters ahead to save your steps on damp cobbles.