July 2018
I keep going with those articles about England that I’ve been putting off for years. This time I was in a mood for one of our last trips in the South, just couple of weeks before we moved to Cherbourg and thus turning the UK page all together. However, there was one thing to be done first – visiting Hastings. Not that it is a particularly spectacular town, in fact, quite on the contrary – it no different from any other seaside town on the south (a mix of Eastbourn, Broadstairs, a touch of Brighton). It’s more for the “feel the history underneath your feet” vibe that we came for.
It was in Hastings that one of the most famous battles of British history took place, thus shaping the history of Britain and Europe as we know them today. Everyone is familiar with William the Conqueror– the Duke of Normandy, who defeated Harold II. We learn about him from the school textbooks all over the world. Going there felt a bit like a pilgrimage, and leaving UK added a whole deal of gravity to this visit, considering the destination where we would spend a certain bit of our lives.
We started with a carefree seafront walk despite a certain load on our hearts. We didn’t want to leave London, starting a new life seemed scary, having no money was tiresome and being stuck in that loop of emotions was very exhausting. Due to some more personal reasons, we were both pretty much down and this trip was far from being one of those lighthearted one-day trips that bring colors to our lives.
Hastings had nothing to do with that though. We loved those old fishermen’s huts, maritime air and seagull cries. A compulsory ice cream, a walk on the pier. We even took the first picture from an automatic booth where we laugh, kiss and make faces, just like in every other silly romantic comedy. This picture is travelling with us ever since changing the shelf but never moving too far from our sight.
Hastings Battlefield
Then there was the Hastings battlefield. Even if are both very sensitive and prone to reflections upon history, life brevity and our microscopic role in the Universe (we must be so much fun at parties, huh?), the vision of the battlefield exploded our minds. Seeing how small it is, how ridiculous and primitive the battle was itself, how meaningless and worthless were (still are?) human lives, stirred up many thoughts. That was agreeable and scary at the same time. It was incredibly interesting to learn that the English don’t necessarily see the Harold’s defeat the same way the French do – who could have guessed, right?
Epilogue
Two weeks later, we left UK. We came back several times to spend from 5 to 14 days in our favorite city. In 2020, we got rid of our flat in London and abandoned our ambitious hopes of buying property (lol) and having our permanent residency there. We discovered that the life outside London exists too and oh, how good that life can be! In November 2018 we visited Bayeux – a home of the famous tapestry that told us the story of the Hasting battle directly from the XI century. I love it when circumstances arrange themselves in a way that makes you think it was all on purpose.
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