Day 22 -- Port-en-Bessin, Arromanches-les-Bains, Jardin Public de Bayeux

Thursday I went out again early in the morning to photograph some more of the Norman churches in the area. One sad discovery (which should have not been much of a surprise) was how little used these churches now are. I came across a rotation schedule for the area that put a pastor in each little church in that area about once a month.

This was also Jen’s birthday, though, so of course I had to stop for her annual birthday pastry -- though this one far exceeded the usual custard bismarck fare in the states.

After dropping off the pastry, I went out again and this time stumbled across the fish market in Port-en-Bessin. What a blessed cacophony of sea creatures for sale, all fresh off the boat!

Before lunch the whole family headed out to our last D-Day beach excursion, right down the road to Arromanches-les-Bains, the site of Mulberry Harbor, the man-made harbor that protected ships that came to support the post D-Day invasion. Many of the phoenixes (concrete structures used to create the harbor) are still off the shore of Arromanches. It would have been quite a nice spot to play on the beach, but, alas, we had not come prepared.

There is also an excellent 360 degree theatre and museum at the site, though. I am not usually much of a fan of such presentations. In the past I have found them light on content and heavy on the fact that you are in a round room. But this was certainly worth the stop and, once again, powerfully moving in terms of what was sacrificed to recover the humanity of Europe by the men on the beaches of Normandy.

After having lunch at a small place in Arromanches, we returned to Bayeux to relax in the Jardin botanique de Bayeux -- a wonderful walled garden right in the middle of the city. It is a very nice garden all around with a number of trees I don’t think I had seen before, but by far the highlight of the garden is a weeping beech that is approximately 150 years old and was named a “remarkable tree of France” in 2001.

(more pictures in the slideshow below)

That afternoon Jen and I worked on cooking dinner, including fresh bulots (whelks / sea snails) and Marseille Style Shrimp from the morning’s fish market and Potatoes Lyonnaise with Lemon and Chile, both in celebration of Jen’s birthday and in mourning for our last night at the marvelous Château de Vaulaville.

Day 22 Reflection

Travel is a marvelous stimulator of the imagination -- and vice versa.

I had never understood before how travel itself could be considered an essential element of education, per se. But having now experienced travel on this order of magnitude, I understand.

The imaginative powers that are unlocked by travel are at least as significant to the genuinely wondering traveler as those unlocked by books. And the imagination, in turn, is one of the essential habits of mind necessary to become a skillful thinker.

However genuine travel is also fueled by imagination. Only the one whose imagination is active is truly travelling -- moving from one place to another place not merely from one set of coordinates to another, full of hope but without expectations, aware not only of what is but of what might be.

There is a difference, in other words, between a traveler and a tourist.

A tourist’s metaphysical journey while travelling is something like that of a roller coaster car. The tourist pays for admission, he steps into the car, secures his seat belt, and is whisked through a fixed set of exhilarating but largely anticipated experiences, which end on the same platform with the tourist largely unchanged.

A traveler's journey is quite different. It is more like an Arthurian quest or Medieval pilgrimage. Yes, the traveler has set out with some destination in mind and a path before him, but the destinations are sometimes elusive in their essence, the apparent sidetracks many and important, and the journey itself a spiritual test which the traveler must be prepared for and from which he will emerge changed.