An 11th-century embroidery, a cathedral you can see from ten kilometres away, medieval lanes crossed by the river Aure: Bayeux is thirty-five minutes from your cottage in Luc-sur-Mer.
Bayeux has come through the centuries without a scratch: spared by the wars, liberated intact on 7 June 1944, the town has kept its cathedral quarter, its half-timbered houses and its mills on the Aure. People come first for the Tapestry, nine centuries ahead of the comic strip, and stay for the rest: the cathedral and its crypt, the great Saturday market, the terraces of the rue Saint-Jean. La Capricieuse, a five-star Yelloh Village campsite, is thirty-five minutes away: cottages, a heated water park, a restaurant on site and the beach at the end of the lane.
Going round Caen to the north — Douvres-la-Délivrande, Creully — avoids the ring road and takes you right across the Bessin.
The whole historic centre can be walked in ten minutes: park once, then go on foot.
The Tapestry museum is closed for renovation until 2027 and the work itself is on show in London while the building work lasts. The Battle of Normandy museum and the Baron Gérard museum remain open.
Seventy metres of 11th-century embroidery telling the story of William's conquest of England: the oldest comic strip in the world, inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World register. The museum is closed for works until 2027 and the piece is travelling to London in the meantime — it will return to Bayeux in a completely rebuilt setting.
Consecrated in 1077 in the presence of William the Conqueror, it combines a Romanesque nave with a Gothic choir of rare delicacy. Its two spires can be picked out from the sea. Entry is free; in summer the town dresses it in projections after nightfall.
Walled up and then forgotten for centuries, rediscovered in 1412 during building works: the 11th-century crypt has kept its columns with carved capitals and its frescoed musician angels. You go down a few steps, into silence, beneath the choir of the cathedral.
The river runs through the old town, past the mill and the former wash houses, under the half-timbered houses. A one-kilometre loop, the prettiest walk in Bayeux, to be taken before or after the cathedral — this is where the finest photographs of the town come from.
The largest Second World War British cemetery in France: four thousand six hundred and forty-eight Commonwealth graves, and opposite them the memorial to the one thousand eight hundred and eight missing. Planted like an English garden, it is free to visit, a step from the Battle of Normandy museum.
Housed in the former bishops' palace, the MAHB unfolds eight centuries of objects: Bayeux porcelain and lace, Italian primitives, Norman paintings. The courtroom and the garden of the old palace are worth the visit on their own.
Photo credits: ChBougui, Zairon, MagicRubberDuck, Iain Cameron, Roi.dagobert, M. Strīķis — Wikimedia Commons (CC BY / CC BY-SA) · Bayeux Tapestry, public domain.
Photo: Roi.dagobert · CC BY-SA 3.0Planted around 1862, this weeping beech spreads its branches over nearly forty metres of circumference; its shoots fall to the ground and form a leafy hut children dive straight into. The English-style botanical garden around it is free to visit, five minutes' walk from the centre — the ideal stop with children after the cathedral.
Five-star cottages, a heated water park and the beach fifty metres away, in Luc-sur-Mer.
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