Bayeux

Bayeux needs 2 days: touring the Bayeux Tapestry, an 11th-century, 70-meter embroidery narrating the Norman conquest of England in 1066, on one, and visiting the D-Day beaches -Omaha Beach and the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer are less than 20 minutes away- on the other. May-September brings the mildest weather. It's mid-priced for France. It was the first French city liberated after the Normandy landings in June 1944, escaping nearly intact from the destruction suffered by other towns in the region, and its tapestry -a UNESCO Memory of the World- is one of Europe's most important medieval narrative documents.