Bayeux Tapestry in 'wonderful state' after journey to London, French minister says

Much of the stitched masterpiece, which is actually coloured yarn embroidered on linen rather than a woven tapestry, is currently covered up in giant polyester sheeting, to protect it from light damage.

Yesterday, over 18 painstaking hours, teams of French and British conservators and British Museum staff unfurled the 70-metre long artwork from the folding stand where it had been concertinaed, surrounded by protective mattress-type padding.

I'm told there were tears.

Professor Lewis said it was "just so exciting. I've been dreaming about this moment for a very, very long time".

The French visit was about optics.

The delegation viewed one of the early scenes which shows William, then Duke of Normandy, on his throne. He's despatched messengers on horseback to free Harold who has been taken captive in France. At this point in the story, Edward the Confessor is still King and William and Harold are not yet locked in combat.

Viewing an early medieval embroidery close up is quite something.

It's smaller than I expected - around 50 centimetres high - and even in the fairly low lighting, the work is exquisite.

Millie Horton-Insch, the project curator, pointed out to me the detail on the messengers who are riding away in this scene.

"They're travelling at such pace that actually the riders' hair is blown back in quite an expressive cartoonish way, to show how fast they're moving".

Time and again, the 11th-Century seamstresses who created it - who are believed to have been in England, probably Canterbury - were so skilled that the story they are telling looks like it's in 3D.

It's just one detail in an artwork that visitors will have just 40 minutes to view. The British Museum is expecting one million people to come to the exhibition, believing it will rival the famous 1972 exhibition of Tutankhamun that saw record numbers.

One stipulation of the loan was that the tapestry must be displayed flat (there's an understanding that hanging it upright, as visitors have viewed it for years, isn't wise; the impact of gravity wasn't a concern until recently it seems).