May 31 Bayeux

Today we got into Bayeux around 11 am and we had a very strange introduction to the town. After we got into the train station, we walked to our hotel to check in or at least drop our bags off before heading into town. We ended up passing a field with albino-looking cows that kept staring at us. I´ve never seen cows that stared at me like that before. I guess they recognized that we were tourists and were just curious. Haha! When we got to the hotel, we couldn´t find anyone at the desk. The cleaning lady brought the receptionist out from somewhere and she explained to us that check in time was only between 9 am and 11am and then 5 pm to 9 pm and since it was between those hours she couldn´t check us in. We thought that very strange. We have stayed in hotels that had limited hours, but we have never been to one where we couldn´t check in in the afternoon. She told us that there was an automatic check in machine in the parking lot and we could pull up our reservation using our name. We found the machine but it didn´t recognize our name, and after trying to spell it a few different ways, we gave up and tried to find the receptionist again to tell her. She then looked up our reservation and told us that she found our reservation but we must come back at 5 pm. Since Joe and I wanted to see the town anyway, that wasn´t a problem. We asked where we could store our bags for a few hours and she looked at us blankly and told us there was no way she could hold our bags for us. I asked if our room wasn´t ready if we could put in there for the time being and get out of their way. She said "No". I asked what we should do with our stuff and she told us we had to take it with us. I have stayed in many hotels in my life, but I have never stayed in another where the staff was so unfriendly an unaccomodating. We also had other problems with same hotel, but I won´t bore everyone with the details. Let´s just say, I would not reccommend this hotel to anybody.

After this experience, things improved greatly. Bayeux is a cute little town. Joe wanted to sit down and relax a bit, so we had lunch and he stayed with the bags while I checked out the Cathedral and the Bayeux Tapestry. This 230 foot long embroidered cloth tells the story of the Norman conquest of England and William the Conqueror´s rise to the throne in the 11th century.

After that, Joe and I went on a guided tour of Bayeux before finally checking into our hotel for the evening.