An 11th-century embroidery, a cathedral you can see from ten kilometres away, medieval lanes crossed by the Aure: Bayeux is twelve minutes from your cottage.
Bayeux has come through the centuries without a scratch: spared by wars and liberated intact on 7 June 1944, the town has kept its canons' quarter, its half-timbered houses and its mills on the Aure. You come first for the Tapestry, nine centuries ahead of the comic strip, and stay for the rest: the cathedral and its crypt, the big Saturday market, the café terraces on rue Saint-Jean. Camping Portland, a five-star Yelloh! Village, is ten kilometres away: cottages, a heated water park and a rooftop facing the Channel.
A direct road through Escures and Vaucelles: no main roads to take, and you're in town in a quarter of an hour.
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 undergoing works until 2027 and the work itself is travelling to London during the project; it will return to Bayeux in a completely renovated 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 old wash houses, and under the half-timbered houses. A one-kilometre loop, the prettiest walk in Bayeux, to do before or after the cathedral: it's where the best photos of the town are taken.
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 a circumference of nearly forty metres; its boughs sweep down to the ground and form a leafy hut that children dive 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.
5-star cottages and a 2,020 m² heated water park, in Port-en-Bessin facing the Channel.
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