Unmissable family time-travel in historic Normandy, France
Family history adventure in France
Who remembers William the Conqueror? The fierce French nobleman who was promised the English throne by Edward the Confessor, only to be thwarted by the cunning Harold Godwinson, leaving William to lead his army to the Battle of Hastings to defeat Harold and take back the promised English crown in 1066.
Our daughter is learning about this fascinating piece of history at school and embarrassingly, I was struggling to remember my history facts, so I did what any travel planner worth their salt would do – packed the family up, loaded up the car and set off for 36 hours in Normandy to go back in time
Getting there
Travelling to Normandy from the south coast of England is really easy. Head down to Portsmouth and sail withBrittany Ferriesto St Malo (just on the Brittany/Normandy border) or sail to Caen (directly in Normandy).
Mont St Michel ferry en route to St Malo
Our overnight sailing started in French culinary bliss; a 3 course meal in the restaurant, before heading to our cabin to tuck up under snug duvets and puffy pillows. The children were super excited to be in at sea in bunk beds and there was much squealing with excitement before they finally settled down to sleep.
Awaking early the next morning we sailed into in the town ofSt Malo, where we disembarked and headed straight to the nearest cafe in town for breakfast and hot chocolates. We could have lingered a lot longer in St Malo, as there was so much to explore, but we had a history lesson to discover!
St Malo – well worth it’s own short break
First stop, the incredible Mont St Michel – 8th Century
The Mont St Michel island is fabulous and truly takes your breath away because it’s one of the great architectural wonders in France. It was built by Saint Aubert, Bishop of Avranches in the 8th Century, who saw in dreams Archangel Michael, who ordered him to build a sanctuary on Mount Tomb which was a rocky outcrop at the mouth of the Couesnon river.
Aerial shot of the Mont St Michel
This stunning abbey was built in phases over period of years, continuing to build up and up culminating in the bell tower at the top of the Abbey. Great consideration had to be given to the weight of the Abbey, given the buildings below it had to support the upper structures which is always a marvel when you consider medieval building tools. Today, Mont St Michel consists of homes, shops, restaurants, churches and the Abbey itself.
If you’re visiting allow a good 4 or 5 hours to enjoy it in full – the history is rich, the views are spectacular and it’s a very enjoyable family attraction to visit, whilst learning about life in the 8th Century Abbey along the way.
View of the cloisters in the Abbey
When you leave Mont St Michel, be sure to stop in at anycafein the local region to buy freshly made Madeleines – delicious with fresh orange juice, coffee or hot chocolate and I’m sure the ones freshly made in France seem to taste so much better than the ones we get in the UK!
Yummy Madeleines!
World War Two Normandy D-Day landings – 6th June 1944
TheD-Daylanding beaches are a must if you’re in this part of Normandy to reflect on the great sacrifice given by our soldiers to help end the second world war. Our children are 10 and 11 and we thought it was good time to introduce them to the history of the second world war, as played out on the Normandy beaches.
WW2 War Cemetery
There are 2 excellent museums atArromanches– the one at the top of the hill has acircular cinemathat explains the build up to the D-Day landings and the following weeks, which was easy for the children to follow as its mainly video images and covers the first 100 days following the D-Day landings. The othermuseumis at the bottom of the hill, overlooking the beach and is also well worth a visit.
View over Arromanche beach
After we had visited the museums and explored the beaches, the children had lots of questions to ask about what they had seen and heard. The children compared the young age of some of the soldiers to their cousins and couldn’t believe how young they were and I’m pleased that the foundations for this historic period are laid so that when this topic is covered in school, the children can reflect on what they saw and learned from this trip.
One of the gun batteries at Utah beachWounded soldier memorial
William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy – 1066
This chap is the real reason we’re in Normandy – to find out more about who he was and why he was such a big influence on England and the British Crown. We headed off to his ancestral home at hisCastle in Falaise. The children loved it – lots to learn, fun to run around on the ramparts with it’s 15 towers and a great way to experience what it was like to live in Medieval France. And the best thing – according to my 10 year old? The Dungeons!
William the Conqueror’s Castle
Bayeux Tapestry – 1070
If you’ve been learning about William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, then you must come and see this incredibly story of events leading up to and immediately following the battle, in theBayeux Tapestry. At 70 meters in length, there are 50scenesdepicting the events leading to theNorman Conquest of England. Take the audio headphones and follow the story along the tapestry. It really is well worth a visit to bring this part of history to life for school children.
The Bayeux Tapestry
I hope you enjoy exploring Normandy, book early to get great deals on the ferry crossing and accommodation. We stayed in Caen which was pretty central for everything we visited. Good luck with your history lesson – do let me know how you get on!
THE NAZI HUNT FOR HOLY TREASURE FROM THOR'S HAMMER TO THE HOLY GRAIL
Heinrich Himmler was infected by a virulent strain of spiritualism which fed into his racist, supremacist world view and drove him to search for holy relics.
Lost Relics of the Knights Templar sees treasure hunters Carl Cookson and Hamilton White embark on a global odyssey. Their objective: to trace the past of a hoard of artefacts which may have once belonged to the Templars. One of their destinations is Wewelsburg, the imposing German castle which served as the spiritual sanctum for Heinrich Himmler and the SS.
Today, the castle is a looming reminder of how so many members of the Third Reich were beguiled by ancient myths, old orders of chivalry, and the occult. We all know the pantomime villain Nazis of the Indiana Jones films, desperate to dig up the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. But the fact is, many real-life Nazis were just as obsessed as their cackling silver screen counterparts.
Himmler in particular was infected by a virulent strain of spiritualism which fed into his racist, supremacist world view. For him, establishing a new Aryan empire meant resurrecting ancient Germanic myths and iconography. He believed the war against the lesser races required the overturning of traditional Christian morality, replacing it with a new kind of pseudo-religion that drew on chivalry and mysticism.
The now-notorious insignia of the SS, resembling two lightning bolts, was based on runes devised by an Austrian occultist and pagan called Guido von List. The SS itself was, in Himmler’s mind, an elite organisation in the tradition of the Teutonic Knights – an order which, like the Templars, came into existence during the Crusades. Himmler’s grand scheme was to establish Wewelsburg Castle as the Camelot of his modern-day knights. One of the rooms was even named after King Arthur, while another was designated the ‘Grail Room’.
Despite his aversion to conventional Christianity, Himmler was fascinated by the legend of the Grail, perhaps seeing it as a source of immense power. After all, he believed that another fabled artefact – Thor’s hammer – could be requisitioned as a weapon by the Third Reich. In an outlandish letter to the Ahnenerbe, a think tank set up to give academic backing to Nazi racial ideology, Himmler stated his belief that Thor’s hammer was ‘an early, highly developed war weapon of our forefathers’. For this reason, Himmler demanded that Ahnenerbe’s team should ‘find all places in the northern Germanic Aryan cultural world where an understanding of the lightning bolt, the thunderbolt, Thor's hammer, or the flying or thrown hammer exists’.
Himmler personally embarked on a failed mission to find the Holy Grail in 1940, visiting an abbey perched within the Montserrat mountain range in Catalonia. He was presumably led there by the belief that Montserrat was the real-life ‘Montsalvat’, location of the Grail in an Arthurian opera by Hitler’s favourite composer, Richard Wagner. This opera, Parsifal, was based on a medieval German poem called Parzival, written by a knight named Wolfram von Eschenbach. And this poem had already been an inspiration to another Grail hunter in the Nazi regime: Otto Rahn.
Rahn was a somewhat eccentric medievalist who believed there was a link between the story of Parzival and Catharism – a movement that flourished in medieval Europe, particularly in France. Condemned as heretics by the Catholic Church, the Cathars revived old Gnostic concepts that radically overturned traditional Christian thinking. They believed, for example, that the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament were separate entities – the latter sinful, and the former good. Such ideas led to a crusade against the Cathars, and their wholesale slaughter.
A major Cathar stronghold was Montségur, a remote fortress in southwestern France. This became the site of a dramatic confrontation between the Cathars and French royal forces in 1243. Thousands of French troops besieged the fortress for nine long and gruelling months before the people inside eventually surrendered. Hundreds of Cathars were burnt alive in a bonfire after refusing to renounce their blasphemous beliefs. However, it’s believed that a number of Cathars managed to smuggle themselves out of the fortress, undetected, before their brethren surrendered.
It’s been speculated that these survivors of the siege took some kind of treasure with them. Gold, perhaps. Or maybe even the Holy Grail itself, brought back to Europe from the Holy Land, by the Templars or other Crusaders. Otto Rahn, prompted by previous occultists and mystics, identified Montségur with the ‘Montsalvat’ Grail castle of Parzival. His ideas appealed greatly to Himmler, and Rahn eventually joined the SS himself.
The extent of Rahn’s own Nazi beliefs have been a subject of debate. He himself apparently said, ‘A man has to eat. What was I supposed to do? Turn Himmler down?’ But having such powerful patronage certainly spurred him on to publish more about the Grail, with the SS brazenly inserting anti-Semitic passages into his romantic, mystical prose. Rahn eventually resigned from the SS and died of exposure on a mountain in 1939 – allegedly suicide, though the details have never been confirmed.
Colourful theories regarding the Cathars, the Grail and the potential involvement of Crusader warriors have persisted in the decades after the fall of the Third Reich. Most famously, in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which theorised that the Cathars knew the secret of the Holy Grail – namely, that it was the bloodline of Christ, from the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. This concept fuelled the plot of Dan Brown’s bestseller The Da Vinci Code, which also portrays the Templars as guardians of this earth-shaking secret.
Carl Cookson and Hamilton White may not have a fabled holy relic in their hoard, but their quest may well bring new insights into the Templars and their religious treasure hunts in the Holy Land, which has fascinated everyone from eccentric occultists to high-ranking Nazis to serious historians today.
Ritual de Tránsito 2012 Venus, Enterprise y la Puerta del Dragón
Por Goro (goroadachi.com y supertorchritual.com) 25 de mayo de 2012
Del 4 al 6 de junio de 2012 , probablemente veremos al miembro más antiguo de la flota de transbordadores espaciales, el Enterprise , siendo remolcado río Hudson hasta su lugar de descanso final, el Museo Intrepid del Mar, el Aire y el Espacio, en el West Side de Manhattan . [Actualización: Fechas cambiadas al 3-6 de junio ]. La mayoría lo desconoce por completo, pero será un reflejo terrestre del Tránsito de Venus que tendrá lugar simultáneamente en el cielo los días 5 y 6 de junio. Todo cuidadosamente organizado para crear un ejemplo exquisito de "como es arriba, es abajo"...
Cuando esto ocurra, el Enterprise entrará en el río Hudson por su desembocadura en el extremo sur de Manhattan, donde podremos visualizar una "puerta" flanqueada por la Estatua de la Libertad y el World Trade Center , donde antiguamente se alzaban las Torres Gemelas . La disposición refleja nítidamente la puerta celestial alrededor del Anticentro Galáctico , flanqueada por las constelaciones de Orión y Géminis . La Vía Láctea es un río (celestial) como el Hudson ; Orión es un " portador de antorcha " (el Sol del solsticio de verano = antorcha de Orión) como la Estatua de la Libertad ; y Géminis son los " Gemelos ", como las Torres Gemelas .
El Sol arriba, la Enterprise abajo. A través de una puerta galáctica arriba, a través de una puerta Hudson abajo. Es un espejo que une el cielo y la tierra.
Para retroceder un poco en el tiempo, el "ritual" comenzó el 27 de abril cuando Enterprise voló hacia la Gran Manzana montado sobre un Boeing 747 precisamente cuando Venus alcanzó su " mayor brillo " como Estrella Vespertina. La coincidencia implicaba una conciencia subyacente del próximo Tránsito de Venus, que será el momento de menor brillo cuando Venus se convierta en un punto negro en la cara del Sol (5 y 6 de junio) sin luz solar reflejada hacia la Tierra.
Como muestra el gráfico, Venus se está atenuando cada vez más, lo que continuará hasta principios de junio. Tras el tránsito, Venus renacerá como el
ACTUALIZACIÓN 27 de mayo: El pico en el otro lado, a mediados de julio, coincidirá aproximadamente con el debut del Enterprise en el museo Intrepid como exhibición oficial, completando su correlación con la línea de tiempo de Venus:
----- fin de actualización -----
Como saben los lectores habituales, cuando hablamos de Venus, y en particular de la Estrella de la Mañana, también nos referimos automáticamente al Príncipe Guillermo y/o a la trinidad William-Kate-bebé. Ambos van de la mano, profundamente entrelazados, como ya se ha explicado en numerosas ocasiones. Por lo tanto, no sorprende que la cronología más reciente de Venus coincida perfectamente con la de la Familia Real Británica: el 29 de abril (máximo brillo de Venus) marcó el primer aniversario de la Boda Real; del 3 al 7 de junio (tránsito de Venus/Enterprise) se celebra el cumpleaños oficial de la Reina (4 de junio) y el Jubileo de Diamante ( 4-7, 3-5 de junio); el solsticio de verano (antorcha de Orión) coincide con el cumpleaños del Príncipe Guillermo; y a finales de julio (bajo una Estrella de la Mañana/portadora de luz muy brillante), la Antorcha Olímpica llega a Londres para los Juegos Olímpicos de 2012.
En términos de la órbita de la Tierra alrededor del Sol, el 27 de abril (la llegada del Enterprise a la Gran Manzana ) fue una ventana con el ápice de un pentagrama (núcleo de la manzana)...
El pentagrama es una firma geométrica de Venus, lo que tiene mucho sentido en el contexto actual.
Y la manzana tiene el efecto adicional de recordar a la Familia Real Británica a través del Rey Arturo , cuyo Santo Grial ( San Greal ) o "Sangre Real" ( Sang Real ) es de vital importancia para la realeza en Gran Bretaña. El linaje jacobita del Príncipe Guillermo y su futuro hijo tiene mucho que ver con el tema subyacente de este período, es decir, el "Regreso/Renacimiento del Rey Arturo", intercambiable con la "Resurrección de Lucifer/Fénix" , etc. (Consulte mi artículo " El Destino de Lucifer " para más información sobre el tema). Si el Rey Arturo ha de "regresar", sería desde Ávalon , donde se cree que el antiguo y futuro Rey hiberna. Resulta que el nombre "Ávalon" significa " manzana ".
También cabe destacar que la corte del Rey Arturo se llamaba Camelot , apodo popular de la administración de John F. Kennedy . El 27 de abril , el Enterprise aterrizó en el Aeropuerto Internacional JFK de Nueva York .
El pentagrama es una firma geométrica de Venus, lo que tiene mucho sentido en el contexto actual.
On June 5-6, 2012, a transit of Venus occurred, where Venus appeared as a small, dark spot passing across the face of the sun. This rare astronomical event happens in pairs, eight years apart, and is separated by 105 or 121 years. The transit began at 22:09 UTC on June 5, 2012, and ended at 04:49 UTC on June 6, 2012. The exact times varied by up to ±7 minutes depending on the observer's location.
The Moon phase on Wednesday, December 31, 1997 is Waxing Crescent with an illumination of 7.18%. This indicates the percentage of the Moon illuminated by the Sun. On Wednesday, December 31, 1997, the Moon is 2.55 days old. This number shows how many days have passed since the last New Moon.
Moon phase details at Wednesday, December 31, 1997
Moon Phase details
Phase
???? Waxing Crescent
Horoscope
♑ Capricorn
Illumination
7.18% Visible
Rise/Set
8:24 AM / 9:59 PM
Moon Age
2.55 Days
Moon Angular
30.81º
Moon Distance
370,378.60 km
Frequently Asked Questions
On Wednesday, December 31, 1997, the Moon is in the Waxing Crescent phase with 7.18% illumination, is 2.55 days old, and located in the Capricorn (♑) constellation. Data from phasesmoon.com.
The Moon's illumination on Wednesday, December 31, 1997 is 7.18%, according to phasesmoon.com.
Previous subject
Mont St Michel ferry en route to St Malo
St Malo – well worth it’s own short break
Aerial shot of the Mont St Michel
View of the cloisters in the Abbey
Yummy Madeleines!
WW2 War Cemetery
View over Arromanche beach
One of the gun batteries at Utah beach
Wounded soldier memorial
William the Conqueror’s Castle
The Bayeux Tapestry
The Moon phase on Wednesday, December 31, 1997 is Waxing Crescent with an illumination of 7.18%. This indicates the percentage of the Moon illuminated by the Sun. On Wednesday, December 31, 1997, the Moon is 2.55 days old. This number shows how many days have passed since the last New Moon.
AVERAGE MOON RISE
