Day 23: Caen to Lisieux

September 1, 2024

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We began by reversing yesterday's portage of all our gear, on the stairs of the Hotel Bernieres (not the across the street at the Astrid, as Scott surmised).

Right beside the hotel we spotted something to heat up our blood a little more. It was a super rare physical branch of the CCF (Credit Commercial de France) bank. We used to have a convenient arrangement for transferring euros from Canada, and using a European credit card, through HSBC. But they either sold out or changed their name to CCF, and the services disappeared. Yet we were left with a CCF account. The thing is CCF will never, ever, answer our emails, secured messaging, or even the phone. So seeing a branch gave us fantasies of going in and reaming them our over whatever our current beefs are. But of course, they were closed!

Caen was super heavily damaged during WW II, so there is precious little in terms of medieval buildings to look at. However, its major monuments survived enough to be restored. These include a fair number of churches, two monasteries, and the huge chateau of William the Conqueror. We launched a 5 km circuit that rolled us by several of the major sites, but we did not set aside time to go into any, except the first.

First on our way was the St Pierre church. You can see from the photo that this was all but destroyed in the war, but the restoration is very good.

High on the wall of the church was not a sundial, but some sort of calendar. It's a mystery to me. Are there any astronomers in the audience?

The church was started here in the 7th century, but proabably the major construction was from the 13th to 16th century. Building styles changed over time, and that is probably why this church now has a spire.

St Peter, as the founder of the catholic church, is usually depicted holding a key. I am not quite sure if this one has the key, or has lost it, or what the meaning of the inscription is.

I think this version does have a firm grip on that key.

The church in general has the expected gothic arches and stained glass, and is beautiful.

Across the street from the church is the huge, fortified chateau. In front of it is a stylized statue depicting the founders, William the Conqueror and his wife Matilda of Flanders.

Here is their capsule story:

Circling around the castle now, we don't see much, because it is after all a medieval fortress.

More photogenic are the few old buildings on the Rue de Vaugueux:

A door to the castle - the donjon (keep) the place of last resort in case of siege or attack.

Looking for picturesque photos, I got this angle down a street.

And here is the local tram system, called Twisto. It caught my attention with a "welcome cycles" sign.

Next up is the Abbaye aux Hommes put up by William (Matilda did one aux Dames), plus the associated St Etienne church. The tomb of William is in there, while Matilda is at Abbaye aux Dames.

The mounted statue is of a miscellaneous noble we did not recognize.

A couple of blocks away is the "old" St Etienne church, now a ruin.

Now we are at the primary walking street of town. You can be sure I did not miss that rather dark (in the photo) Paul bakery, which yielded a strawberry and a raspberry tart. Dodie reminded me that we had intended to cut down on this kind of stuff, but I put in a plea of starvation, due to only a standard French breakfast.

The walking street looks pretty good, but there is a dark side.

A closer look at the carving on that building

But looking down the street with a critical eye, there are low and ugly post war buildings making up most of it. Then there are some probably 19th century ones. The real charm only comes from the broad car free pavement.

Here is a church on the walking street, under repair.

We were greeted on the street by four guys from Philadelphia doing a bicycle tour with the Backroads company. They will go from here to the D-Day beaches. To each his own, but it's probably unnecessarily expensive for this easy to cope with area.

That was it for our Caen tour, so we headed for the river and basin and high tailed it out of town.

Of course getting entirely out of town is never that easy with a big city. We found ourselves in a lot of suburbs, including a new development, where the houses were all simple concrete boxes.

One thing the developer had thought of was barricades for the walking/cycle paths - so many as to make us crazy. We headed instead for some real roads (I forgot my chainsaw!).

Presumably a side effect of the new development was the discovery of neolithic and bronze age remains. An archeological project had been set up here, with explanations for the public.

War memorials are dotted on the landscape in Normandy. This one honours 28 people executed in July 1944. Their bodies were found in a muddy bomb crater.

Again today we saw lots of these birds. We hate to call them buzzards, which seems to have a negative connotation. How about their Spanish name: Zopilote?

A lot of our route was designated a Cider Route. I hoped that could produce some roadside stands or sales, but no.

If you look at the map of our track at the top of this page, you see that 2/3 of the way through the path turned to hills. We certainly saw it, and went from pleasant cruising to huffing and puffing in the increasing heat!

The scenery was nice, but more like forest and field than cow and corn, so less interesting.

Pleasant countryside, needs more cows and corn.

When we made it (over hill and dale) to Lisieux, we rolled up first to yet another eglise St Pierre. Now the thing about Lisieux is that is was home to Sainte Therese of Lisieux. Sainte Therese is known world wide, and especially to us, since there is a town of that name near Montreal. In fact, because of Sainte Therese, Lisieux is second only to Lourdes as a French pilgrimage site. But here was St. Pierre, and Dodie thought I should check it out, before we regrouped and went looking for Sainte Therese.

So I slouched up the steps, and snapped the shots you see below, before insisting we find the famous saint.

1944! The church's main construction phase otherwise was 12th and 13th century.

Just inside the door, stained glass was pouring through coloured light.

This was the glass responsible for the light show.

Aha, this Peter has a serious key! Did you ever see "The Shoes of the Fisherman" with Anthony Quinn as a Russian dissident that becomes Pope? He gets a vote of confidence at one point from a senior church official, who says "Tu es Petrus" , you are Peter. Characters in the movie come to regret that, as Quinn decides to donate all the church's wealth to mitigate a chinese famine.

By far the highlight of the day was our arrival at the Basilica of Sainte Therese. It's up a hill, and I have to admit that Dodie was less thrilled than me! But we loved Lourdes and Fatima, and this is in the same league.

Sort of strangely, I thought the basilica was a "standard issue" mind boggling, highly decorated basilica. That's because, huge and attractive as it was, at least in the main hall, Sainte Therese seemed to be just MacTac'd on to the traditional Christian imagery, with photos literally tacked to the walls.

Ste Therese tacked to the walls? The thing about Therese, she was a young and fairly attractive girl. That seemed to make her a poster child, her image found in many many churches. Here in her Basilica, she is similarly displayed on the walls.

In the upper basilica, this may be the only area where a non poster version of Therese is featured.

You could also get this souvenir medallion, but i didn't have €3

If you look closely at this, I think you see visits of popes in honor of Therese, plus racist images of black, brown, yellow, and red people.

In one area, there were family type photos of Therese, plus some that are more like posters. Therese died famously at 24. So we also get her on her death bed, and presumably, dead.

Underneath the basilica there are more great chambers, and a more extensive display of family photos and history. There is also a wax museum diorama of Therese's life that I missed!!

Therese does get centre stage down here.

Still a lot of nicely done standard imagery down here too.

Sainte Therese is an interesting model for a celebrity, since she did not appear to take any real steps to become famous. That is, unlike Bernadette at Lourdes, the children at Fatima, or for that matter Joan of Arc, she did not claim to be talking to Mary, or God, angels, or anybody. She simply led a pious life, a wrote down her thoughts, generally advocating simplicity.

Just reading a bit more now of Therese's biography, I see that she was very bright, while given to tantrums at an early age. She was greatly affected by the loss of her mother at age four, and by having her older sisters leave for a convent. There was much more to her life as a Carmelite nun, and I was skimming through to try to see just how she became so famous. Unfortunately the thing went on and on and I am really no wiser. If anyone has a quick answer, I would be interested to see it in a comment!

Today's ride: 59 km (37 miles)
Total: 796 km (494 miles)

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Karen PoretHer life was simple and she led life by this belief.
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3 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Karen PoretAnd if she had lived 100 years later her TB might have been cured and she could have lived longer than 24 years.
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3 months ago

Karen PoretTo Steve Miller/GrampiesHowever, Another illness ( flu, covid, etc) are already taking the places of TB. It is the evolution of germs, which we cannot stay ahead of . Enough..
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3 months ago