A WEEKEND TRIP TO NORMANDY: Guest Post by Mike Mayone

Bayeux, Normandy

My nephew-in-law, Mike Mayone, who often travels for business, recently had a chance to visit Normandy in France on one of his trips. I thank him for sharing his experience with The Intrepid Tourist and providing a personal view of the place so important in the history of World War II.

With all of the focus on Normandy for the 75^th reunion of D-Day, I could not pass up the chance to visit myself.  I had business in Paris and found myself with an available Saturday. 

I learned that the Normandy D-Day landings involved numerous seaside towns and spanned across over 100 kilometers.  I also learned that when Airbnb says that the location you rented is in a particular town, they mean that it is reasonably close to the town.  Luckily, I figured that out before arriving at the Caen train station where I had reserved a car for my Normandy excursion. I just needed the car the night before to get to a lovely town called Bayeux where my Airbnb was located.  Little did I know that Bayeux has a deep history regarding World War II and beyond.  I ran to Hertz to pick up my rental before it closed that evening.  Yep, they decided I looked like the kind of guy that should be driving a delivery vehicle, so they gave me a Fiat diesel delivery van with a manual transmission, complete with a cage in the back that locks separately from the cab.  It wouldn’t have been so bad except that it was bright white and carried a huge Hertz logo on both sides.  Needless to say, during my travels I received a lot of funny looks.

Omaha Beach Memorial

Like the Allies in the summer of June 1944, I planned to invade Normandy, but needed more than the internet to figure out the best way to do it.  Luckily my Airbnb had two useful publications.  The first was for the D-Day Normandy Land of Liberty 75^th Anniversary event, complete with maps and an itinerary if you happened to be here in June 2019.  The second was an incredible Life Magazine publication called D-Day, Remembering the Battle that Won the War, that kept me up past midnight with its wonderful photography and prose.  

I learned in preparation for my D-Day landing that D-Day really simply means “Day-Day.”  Since it was a “Day” that changed the world I can see why they named it twice.  The morning of February 15 arrived and even though I was a bit sleep deprived, I got up, ate breakfast and used the map in the trusty Land of Liberty booklet to determine my plan of attack.  I decided that since Bayeux is close to the center of the five landings from D-Day, I should begin by driving to the farthest landing first. That meant that Utah Beach, about 30 kilometers from my Airbnb, would be my first visit.  As it turns out, the US was responsible for the invasion at Utah beach, so I definitely wanted to check it out.  Utah Beach is in the town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise.  This is the location where the 82^nd and 101^st Airborne Divisions were on the front line when the landing began at 4 AM on June 6, 1944.  Thousands of ships, vehicles and equipment pushed their way to the beach while Allied aircraft bombed German fortifications on the coast.  Walking along the vast beach, I could almost feel the guns firing from every direction. The somber February morning added to the effect.  Despite the favorable outcome of the Utah Beach landing, I couldn’t help but feel that I was blessed to live in a time where I wasn’t called to fight for my country.

My next stop was Omaha Beach.  If you only went to Utah Beach you may have thought that the Allies were invincible and would easily overcome the enemy.  A short time at the Omaha Beach landing site made it clear that wasn’t the case.  As the invasion started there, the Germans mowed down the approaching Allied forces.  Thousands were killed and wounded.  I learned later in the day that Eisenhower had no Plan B. Maybe that added to the resolve of the troops on Omaha Beach who broke through the German defenses around mid-day on June 6.  Given all the loss of life at Omaha Beach, the scene reminded me of the memorials I have seen for 9-11 in New York City.  They are special and speak to the heroic effort of those who lived and died. 

American Cemetery, Normandy.

Next on my route was the Normandy American Cemetery.  This is the place where the enormity of D-Day really hits you.  Walking through the grave sites of the nearly 10,000 service members placed there, you can feel the price of war.  I was on the early side so after parking my van, I walked to the visitor center, banana peel in hand (from a late morning snack), thinking I could throw it out prior to exploring the sacred site.  I should have realized they would have metal detectors and security at the entrance.  Everyone working there was very nice but I felt foolish as I put my banana peel in the tray usually used for your cell phone and wallet.  After getting beyond security I asked the woman behind the desk where I could dispose of my banana peel and she said no one in the building is allowed to have food so she wasn’t sure how to help me.  My quick thinking in asking where the Men’s Room was saved me.  It can be rare to have a moment of levity in this kind of situation but I needed it.

The Visitors Center was one of the best things I saw all day. They also had a 15-minute video for visitors showing how the planning, invasion and aftermath transpired.  I would have paid a steep price to take this all in but it turned out that it was one of the only free museums offered.

After that I walked all of the grounds, saw the chapel and was amazed by the painted ceiling.  As I headed back to the van, I saw what looked like a group of high school kids gathering near the memorial.  I changed course and made it to the memorial right before this Atlanta based high school band, called the Whitewater Band, played God Bless America and Taps.  It was beautiful. 

It was now after noon and I needed to plan the rest of the day.  Up until this point the rain held off.  Next down the line was a British led invasion at Gold Beach.  I plugged the name into Waze and was on my way.  As I drove on a few one-lane roads and cow paths I stopped the car in the middle of the road (aka cow path) to make sure I entered everything correctly.  Waze said I did.  As it told me “you have reached your destination,” I looked to the right to see a beautiful vista of Gold Beach but it was about a mile away as the crow flies.  I decided that if I typed in the name of a monument that might get me to where I wanted to be, so I did that and it sent me a few miles down the road.  At least I was now close to the water, but I only saw a few cars and people on foot.  I parked the van, got out and joined the other walkers on a very rocky path.  After making it a half mile or so, I realized this was a very natural version of a memorial.  Not to be discouraged I decided there must be another town around Gold Beach where there would be more activity and I found the town of Arromanches.  It wasn’t that far and proved to be a great last visit for the day as the rain started to fall.

Bayeux Cathedral

With the rain coming down I headed back to Bayeux.  I got to the Airbnb and unloaded some of my gear and decided to head to the supermarket. Along the way I visited La Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux. This cathedral goes back to the 9^th century and is magnificent.  On the way back, I covered most of Bayeux and enjoyed some great sites in between the rain drops.

IN THE LAND OF NJÁL’S SAGA IN ICELAND Guest post by Karla Chucsdottir (a.k.a. Caroline Hatton)

The author with an axe to cut quiche and a sword as a toothpick. Photo by husband Viljam Glennsson. Viking costume, weapons, and picnic table courtesy of the Saga Centre (Hvolsvöllur, Iceland).

My friend and fellow children’s book author Caroline Hatton visited Iceland in June 2019 with her husband Bill. She took all but one of the photos in this post. For more information about her, visit www.carolinehattonauthor.com.

Before my first visit to Iceland in 2007, I had long been fond of its first inhabitants, the Vikings—those formidable, endearing brutes. But I had not yet read their stories, the Icelandic Sagas, widely considered gems of world literature. They are set long ago when Iceland resembled America’s Wild West, and the Viking settlers’ idea of exercise was to go around skewering neighbors. The Sagas are family oral histories written down a few centuries after they had happened. Scholars speculate that following generations of deft storytellers, the anonymous recorders captured optimized history.

Today in the south of Iceland, the setting of Njál’s Saga.

After returning home in 2007, I learned that one of the most famous Icelandic Sagas is Njál’s Saga (Njála in Icelandic, also known as The Story of Burnt Njál [pronounced nyahl]). I devoured the English version and loved it. This epic lawyering novel is set around the year 1000 CE in the south of Iceland. It’s about Njál Þorgeirsson of Bergþórshvoll and Gunnar Hámundarson of Hlíðarendi, who were very good friends. Unfortunately, their wives were anything but. It was between them that the trouble began. One mean wife ordered the killing of a servant of the other wife’s, the other wife returned the favor, and the next thing they knew, the whole situation snowballed into decades of bloodshed.

The story delivers (in alphabetical order) affronts to family honor, ambushes, battles, betrothals, dead bodies, deceit, grievances, matings, mediation, revenge, and much, much more, against a backdrop of historic commotion—the conversion of Iceland from Norse paganism to Christianity. The English version of Njál’s Saga is available online, easy to read, fascinating, heartbreaking, and haunting.

The Viking world, the context of the sagas, as shown at the Saga Centre in Hvolsvöllur, Iceland. The Vikings sailed from Norway to Iceland, Greenland, and America.

A great way to learn more about Njál’s Saga is by visiting the Saga Centre in Hvolsvöllur in the south of Iceland where the story takes place. I jumped at the chance in 2019, during my second trip to Iceland. The Centre's exhibits introduce Njál’s Saga’s characters and plot in the context of the Viking world. Once educated, I borrowed a costume and toy sword, axe, shield, and helmet, to defend my picnic. The Saga Centre is located an easy hour-and-a-half drive from Reykjavik via the excellent Ring Road that loops all around Iceland. The Centre is one of the milestones on the multicountry Saga Trail .

Seen at the Saga Centre: Njala (Njál’s Saga) Tapestry design detail, as printed for display. This woman might be Gunnar’s wife, who was not a nice lady: “Hallgerda, the fairest of women, tall of stature, fair-haired, and had so much of it she could hide herself in it; but she was lavish and hard-hearted.”

The Saga Centre is also the home of the Njala (Njál’s Saga) Tapestry. Contemporary Icelandic creators dreamed it up. It is reminiscent of the world famous Bayeux Tapestry, which is a 70-meter long, 50-centimeter tall, embroidered cloth that depicts the conquest of England in the year 1066 by William, Duke of Normandy. The Njala Tapestry, which depicts Njál’s Saga, consists of 90 meters by 50 centimeters of linen in the process of being embroidered with Icelandic, plant-dyed wool yarn.

As a horse lover, all the photos I took of the Njala Tapestry designs were of horses, until I caught myself doing it. Then I made sure to take this photo of something else. It’s not my fault if there are horses in this ship.

The project is unusual in that anyone can pick up a needle and help. I would have loved to learn the Bayeux stitch used to embroider the tapestry, but we visited on a Sunday when the sewing room was closed. Before leaving town, I consulted a map highlighting nearby locations identified in Njál’s Saga.

Njál and his friends and foes bonded and bled in settings like this one.

The saga’s characters lived on farmsteads spread across a landscape that looked much as it still does today.

Njál’s Saga mentions Keldur where this farm, now a museum, is located. In 2019, drought associated with climate change killed roof sod that had naturally stayed lush for centuries.

One character, an uncle of Njál’s illegitimate son, lived at Keldur, where the Keldur Farm Museum  is located, a 15-minute drive from Hvolsvöllur. The turf buildings are the oldest of their kind still standing in Iceland. They were lived in, added on, and “updated” into the 1900s, though they remained rustic.

Inside the medieval part of the Keldur Farm building: cow’s stomach windows panes (not in photo) let daylight in near the cow dung fire (not lit) used to cook cow soup (not on the day I took this photo).

Some seven hundred years ago, Vikings were immortalized in the Icelandic Sagas. Today, you can visit many of the sites where their lives unfolded, and stand where they once fought literal and legal battles. Of all the sagas, Njál’s Saga is the only one set in the south of Iceland, where I can’t seem to get enough of the stunning, dramatic scenery.

FOR MORE INFO 

Links to more about Njal’s Saga.