| The small town of Falaise was the site of two of the key events of the second millenium for the history of Britain, one near the beginning and the other near the end.
In 1027 Robert the Magnificent, son of the Duke of Normandy, while returning to Falaise Castle from hunting, spotted the beautiful Arlette washing clothes in the stream with her skirts drawn high. The fruit of his passion was to be called Guilleheaume and grew up to become one of the intellectual and military giants of the millenium. We know him as "William the Conquerer". On August 19th 1944 the Allies completed a pincer movement and trapped the German Army in a large pocket between Falaise and Argentan. Although some escaped, the Battle of Normandy was over leaving the enemy with 600,000 fewer soldiers and all their guns and tanks destroyed or captured.
Falaise's setting in the Ante Valley, a ravine dominated by scattered rock spurs, is dominated by the huge mediaeval fortress perhaps still haunted by the memory of Arlette and her son William. Nowadays the ghosts of the Third Reich linger there also.
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