From Quimper I caught a train to Caen, which I had decided to visit because of its Peace Memorial. But in order to save my two remaining Eurail pass travel days for two otherwise costly Thalys trips, I had to pay out of pocket for this ticket. And although I settled in to enjoy the scenery, within a few stops the train had filled up considerably and I found myself engaged in a conversation with a young guy beside me who was returning from a scuba diving outing; for the rest of the journey to Le Mans (where I changed trains) I listened to him describing his love for diving, the nature of it, etc. I didn’t have much to say and was content with prompting him for clarifications of the details of scuba diving in France, and he seemed delighted to be telling me about it, so things were fine (although when talk turned to politics, I had to try to explain the U.S. electoral college to him in order to explain how it was that we got stuck with Dubya and how he didn’t have truly popular support for his stance on Iraq).

In Le Mans we parted, and I got on my connecting train to Caen. And a few minutes later so did he…turns out his destination was a few stops along the route…so of course he joined me (this time in a facing seat). I switched the topic to music, because I was still up for a little more listening but was getting tired of acting as Conversation Prompter, and I know music is a subject that most people love to talk about without prompting.

Just before we left the station, a very young-teenage kid got on and sat across the aisle from the two of us (I never did catch my first guy’s name); during the music conversation I noticed this kid was listening and looked almost eager to join in, but it never quite happened. My first guy got off at his stop, and there I was with this 17-year-old kid from a tiny village in Normandy looking at me like I’m supposed to continue the conversation with him now. Tired as I was of even listening, and wanting to just sit and watch the scenery, I still couldn’t bring myself to ignore him—he looked so eager to have a conversation as easygoing as the one he’d heard us having—so continue it I did.

The highlight of this visit was when he showed me his new retainer.

Eventually we reached Caen, where he went to the front of the train station to wait for his mother to come pick him up (jailbait! jailbait!) and I crossed the street to get a room at the very conveniently located Etap Hotel before checking out the city.

Caen…was kind of dull, actually. There’s not much to see beyond the WWII memorials, and most of those are outside of the city. A decent wandering walk through the southern end of the city and up the river to the heart of town told me very little about the place except that the outlying areas had little to offer by way of distraction.

As for the Peace Memorial, I had very mixed feelings. For starters, it’s quite big and far too far-flung in its goals. I got the feeling that it used to be something smaller and simpler but then it got some serious financing and went apeshit trying to be All Things To All People.

Alas, that All People seems to have included tour groups without planning how to have both them and casual visitors go through the same narrow spaces. And there were many—narrow spaces as well as tour groups—the day I was there. If I never see another group of junior-high students on a field trip again in my life, it will still be too soon. Of course, that’s been true since even before I was a junior-high school student myself. But this visit started very badly—I almost left within ten minutes of arriving—thanks to a crush of school tours that went through the “Frailty of Peace” beginning of the exhibits while I was starting off.

Now it’s bad enough having to hang back against a wall for 5 to 10 minutes here and there, waiting for the French students to finish filling in the blanks in their find-this-info-in-the-Memorial booklets or checking off some item on a checklist from the teacher, all the time hovering over the exhibits with no awareness that anyone else might want to see them. But the worst, well, the second-worst, that day (and it could have been third-worst on a worse day), was having a bunch of American junior-high school students among that crowd…. Trying to read the Memorial’s commentary on and assessment of the world events and economics that led to WWII while beside me teenage girls with absolutely no interest in the museum are saying “so, like, are you going to California this summer?” “Yeah, my friend’s got this place….” “Is that near San Diego?” “No, it’s like further north, sorta….”

Teeeeeedious. Then again, the museum itself really was inconsistent in its quality: much of it seemed vague, but there were patches of overly-focused detail. Worst was the absence of conclusive lessons or even definite conclusions about the array of facts amassed all around. And then it just went on too long, over too much territory. But then the same could be said of WWII itself, I suppose. Also, it couldn’t seem to decide whether it was about war or peace, despite its name. I had actually hoped its scope would cover the Great War, but as it didn’t I felt that the overall effect was inconclusive because it was not fully grounded.

Because Caen was on my Check It Out If You Can list only for the Memorial, and because this entire journey was so spur-of-the-moment and unplanned, I was blissfully unaware of Caen’s more historical distinction of being the home of William the Conqueror. So the oldest aspects of the town were completely lost on me. But more immediate history was being made at the same time as my visit, which is how I happened to watch that fascinating broadcast in which Jacques Chirac was jointly interviewed by Patrick Poivre d’Arvor (TF1) and David Pujadas (France 2). This interview (which can be viewed in full online at the French President’s website, though without attribution of which interviewer posed which question, and only in French) was quoted selectively by U.S. and U.K. media shortly afterwards as proof that Chirac was just sitting there waiting to use France’s Security Council veto.

The reality of this interview was quite different…Chirac was gently burbling “we’re all working together to reach good solutions” political rhetoric most of the time, albeit with accurate assessments of the situation, pointing out that things were already on their way to getting resolved by peaceful means if only the U.S. and U.K. would let those processes finish, but PPDA and Pujadas kept interrupting him and pushing him to just say what the bottom line was. It really was fascinating to watch; not only was I watching the head of state getting repeatedly knocked off his podium by journalists whose credentials were as good as his if not better, but I got to see a clearer representation of representative accountability than we ever get in the U.S. I mean, can you imagine Dubya being confronted in this way, without spokespersons or lackey interviewers, somebody actually getting to grill him on the subjects his constituency has clearly indicated it’s not giving him carte blanche to pursue?

Well, back to Caen. Even its historical elements from centuries ago are all bookmarked by World War II, which clearly had a huge impact on the city as well as this region of Normandy in general. For example, the St Jean cathedral, which was mightily damaged by Allied bombing to oust the German forces from the city; the front of the cathedral has a pronounced lean northwards, which is absolutely unnerving if you stand inside it and really give it a good look. In general I think the fact that I have always found The Great War a more intriguing subject of study (largely because of its role in a tremendous social and psychological shift in the Western world) than World War II has left some terrible omissions in my impressions during travel. The French in Caen certainly seem to take the Normandy beach landings quite seriously, almost religiously; because of that the subject was presented with great import at the Memorial, and in turn it really moved me too. I confess I’d never thought of it in terms of the populace’s sense of deliverance…and here I was in a town devastated by Allied bombing at the time of the Normandy landings, where even today the restaurant right next to my cheap hotel has emblazoned in fresh, clear paint around its glass dining extension “Welcome to our Liberators!”

The next morning I crossed the street to the train station and boarded a train for Paris, where I would catch the Thalys to The Hague.

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Text © 2003 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted