Les voyages de Cate: Notre-Dame du Bessin

Notre-Dame du Bessin

Notre-Dame du Bessin is the Cathedral of Bayeux (yeah, another Notre-Dame). It's huge!

We planned to just have a quick wander around the Cathedral, and then go find lunch.

Info about the Cathedral

It took us a little while to find the Entrance (it was around the other side) but we found it eventually.

We spent about 20 minutes walking around when I spotted some people coming down from a stair case in the wall. I was feeling rather curious, so me and Allison decided to go up there to see where it led.

Cathedrale of Bayeux

These spiral church steps were really dark and sketchy, and to be honest we really didn't feel like we were supposed to be going up there, but we just kept going anywhere. After a few minutes of climbing, we finally saw a room with some light so we went in there. I was so grateful for a rest - I was really out of breath (so unfit) and the spiral stairs had been quite creepy!

In the Knave of the Cathedral

The room we ended up in had a good view over the town of Bayeux and out towards some woods (which we were later told used to be where a big Castle was - but that got knocked down/destroyed during the revolution).

There was also a big display board with some information about a bell on it. It was all in French so I didn't take that long to look at it. After a few minutes, some other people came up the stairs.

Memorial Plaque for British Soldiers who liberated Bayeux,
and Poppy Remembrance Wreaths in the Cathedral

A man started talking to us in French (I had no idea what he was on about) and Allison said that he was asking if we were with a guide. He then asked 'are you going down? or staying with me?' - which I understood. We were a bit freaked out about going back down the dark steps on our own so opted to stay with the tour.

There was also a Canadian couple, a French couple and an older French man with the guide who were all quite nice.

He talked for about 5 minutes in French about the display board, which I (surprisingly was largely able to understand). It was all about a bell which was made this year to commemorate 70 years since the liberation of Bayeux.

Display board about the bell

This bell was commissioned by the Bishop of Bayeux, and (I believe) paid for by 10 different nations, including Great Britain, Canada, USA, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany, and has a patron from each country - the British patron of the bell is, naturally, HRH Queen Elizabeth II. However, Queen Liz wasn't able to make it to the ceremony for the bell on 6th June 2014 so Charles and Camilla came instead (Fran says Kate & Wills were at that too).

View across Bayeux
(the woods are where the castle was)

The 70th Anniversary Bell

The guide talked all about how it was made - by metal being poured into a Cast etc. and about how the bell handle is a claw.

He also talked about the design on the bell which are symbols to commemorate 70 years of peace, although I don't remember exactly what it was.

We then walked up yet more steps to the room with four Bells. This was really difficult to get to and the steps got really narrow.

In the room itself, there were wooden planks to stand on which made a walkway around the room, but it didn't feel especially safe! If you looked down between the wood structure and the stone walls you could see ALL the way down. Terrifying.

The Bell Tower, Notre-Dame du Bessin

Our guide switched to 'Franglais' around this time so we were able to understand a bit more of what he was saying. He rang a couple of the bells for us and told us that these four bells are only rung for ceremonies, and that there were other bells that were used for the time. I think the largest bell in that room was 2 tonnes. He said the other bells in the other tower were 3 and 4 tonnes!

In this room, he also showed us some really old graffiti which had been carved into the stone walls - one of the oldest ones we could see was early 17th Century! People had also used charcoal too, but some of the charcoal graffiti that was lower down had been rubbed away.

The Bells of Notre-Dame (du Bessin)

We walked through some more slightly scary steps, and through a narrow corridor which led to the other tower. Here he showed us the recent renovations of the belfry (apparently they had been swinging and knocking the wall every time they rang the bells!)

We walked back down some much safer looking steps (better lit and smooth rather than dark and bumpy) and ended up in yet another room. In this room we were offered drinks and snacks. Allison was feeling really uncomfortable about this as we think we may have had to pay for the tour, but as we hadn't...

Very old Graffiti!
You can see the bell carved into the stone!

It was possible to
go even higher!

In this room, the guide showed us the cover that had been made for the 70th Anniversary Bell. It looked like a robe and had lace edging and laced '70' on it. The older french man told us that this was 'Dentalle' which is a special kind of lacework done in Bayeux. Apparently it took over 300 hours to make!

We also found out that this 'cover' will go into the Cathedral treasury where they apparently have lots of other valuable things, once it has been on display.

The bell cover made from Dentalle lace

Very old belfries (over 400 years old)

After this, we climbed back down the stairs (so many stairs!) and ended up back in the main bit of the Cathedral (but on the opposite side as we'd crossed over to the other side).

We thought we might have to pay (not that we would have minded as it was an excellent little tour), but the guide just said 'à bientôt', we said 'merci' and that was that!

View from the first bell tower
across to the other tower.

A wonderful place to visit, and with the tour it was amazing! I would agree with TripAdvisor saying it's the #3 Attraction in Bayeux!

More photographs from our visit at the Cathedral...