Normandy

Woke up to this!

The joys of a riverboat became clear when we sailed away from Paris in the night. When I woke up Saturday morning, we were moored on the bank of the Seine in the little town of Conflans. When I opened my drapes, I saw a swan swimming past in the early sunlight. After breakfast, we climbed on some buses and drove about a half hour to the town of Auvers-sur-Oise, where Vincent van Gogh spent some time at the end of his life, and where he died and is buried. 

All the towns we visited were built of ancient stone in their central areas. Even where there were relatively new buildings, they re-used a lot of the old stones. Auvers was particularly scenic, hence van Gogh's time there, and many of the impressionists as well. The narrow streets and painted doors and vining flowers reminded me of my cousin Jane's art. She would go to Europe for the summer, and take a gazillion photographs. Then returning home, she worked in an art gallery and painted intimate scenes of streets like I saw in the town.

Very Vincent, no?

Auvers is making money on Vincent these day, but to the benefit of tourists like me. They have chosen to preserve many of the landscapes and scenes he painted, so that they look much as they did when he was there. I enjoyed moving through the fields and streets and seeing in my mind's eye the paintings. 

While in Auvers, I visited a little bakery our guide had pointed out. I happened to go in before any other folks from the ship, was the only customer there, and managed to discuss (entirely in French) which pastry was the next best since they were sold out of plain croissants. I got an almond croissant (heavenly!) tapped my watch to pay. Very pleased with myself!

From the cliff; not far from Paris!

Wandering back through town

After lunch back on the boat I set off on a walk along the river bank. Many large barges were moored along the banks, usually three deep (as in, one tied to the river bank, another tied to it further out, and a third still further out- they would walk across each other's boats to get aboard or ashore). They were permanent homes, with mailboxes, electrical cables, and laundry hanging on lines on deck. After a mile or so, I turned inland. The shape of the land was typical of what we would see: one or two roads along the river bank, and then a steep chalk and limestone cliff, with much of the town built up on the cliff to avoid flood (and invaders, I suppose). I walked back along the cliff edge, and wandered into a section with just foot traffic and stairs, too steep for cars and with the old houses crowded close together. It was charming!

Richard the Lion-Heart's castle above the town

The castle ruins

I love looking at these towns!

There are two ships in the picture, side by side.
Ours is the one closest to shore.

We sailed during the night again (and there were locks we went down as we headed towards the sea, but almost all of them were at night and I missed them. We woke up to see another lovely little town, this one with a ruined castle looming over it. After breakfast, we learned about how the castle was built by Richard the Lion-Hearted (that mass murderer personally designed and supervised it) as a state of the art fortress, and lost to the French after his death, in a particularly gruesome, long, and brutal siege where the biggest losers were of course the peasants and townfolk caught up in a conflict that had nothing to do with them. We walked up the steep hill to see the ruins and the view, and we enjoyed some of the best weather of the entire trip.

As it was Sunday, only a couple of tourist shops were open, but again just wandering was fun. That afternoon and night, we pushed on to our northern-most stop. (We were never more than a couple of hours from Paris - the Seine River is extremely twisty and curvy.)  I saw nothing of that town, because Monday was a full day bus tour to the Normandy D-Day beaches and sites. 

Omaha beach today

Normandy was surprisingly moving to me. To be clear, I have no personal, close, family connection to it - my father served during the war, but he was young enough that he was just finishing training when the war was over, so he never went overseas. Other male relatives, and those of childhood friends (when the war was sometimes a topic of conversation), were all in the Pacific. But ever the diligent student, I studied up by downloading and watching the movie The Longest Day. It tells the story of D-Day from multiple points of view, American (John Wayne), British, German, French. I had downloaded the movie to bring along, and I stopped it a few times to look up things on Wikipedia.

The sheer scale of D-Day was astounding. I don't believe anything like it has happened in my lifetime anywhere in the world. In 24 hours, more than 150,000 men were landed in a 50 mile stretch of Normandy. The vast bulk were sent ashore on the beaches, but there were also parachutists and glider landings. On Omaha Beach, the first wave of landings suffered ninety-percent casualties! (Think Saving Private Ryan.) It was uncertain whether the landing would succeed - the German general Rommel knew that his best hope was to never let them get off of the exposed beach and establish points where more troops could come ashore safely. But there are a couple of scenes in the movie where the Germans are trying to get Hitler's permission (required) to move up troops and tanks. First, he's taking a nap and no-one will wake him. Then, he had an unrelated temper tantrum and no-one was willing the broach the topic. (This made me put my hand over my face and weep for us, too familiar to be funny.)

The first village inland to be liberated
Paratroopers came in the night before the beach landings 
and landed in the village itself by mistake
On the church steeple, we see a parachute and a dummy - 
someone was caught there all day and played dead until it was safe

My words are inadequate for the cemetery

 

It was a long day with a lot of different stops and much walking. I was drained when we got back to the ship.

The next day dawned foggy and mysterious. While the boat headed back upstream towards Paris, we took a bus to the well-preserved beautiful little town of Honfleur, almost at the mouth of the Seine. It was filled with galleries and restaurants and gift shops, very geared to holidays and tourists, but still completely charming. And you know I was so pleased to see actual working boats!

Lots of well preserved half-timbered buildings.

A sheltered boat basin - there was a larger but more exposed harbor

Our guide for the morning.
I admired how committed she was to red,
head to toes to fingertips, most in velvet!

 

After the morning in lovely Honfleur, I was almost too tired for the afternoon highlight, the much larger city of Rouen. But I'm glad I roused myself to walk around - it is also charming with a lot to see. The cathedral itself was worth a lot of time - even just the outside. I was struck how they were able to make the stone carvings look so delicate! And, plenty of half timbered buildings, and stone buildings, and sites made famous by burning Joan of Arc there. Rouen would be worth a stay of at least a couple of days. I hear there are trains from Paris.

Facade of the cathedral in Rouen

Delicate stonework filigree

I never learned the story, but big teddy bears 
were a frequent motif throughout Normandy

Yet another quaint street!

 The next day, Wednesday, was to be a highlight - Monet's garden and house at Giverny! I had not actually been so thrilled, yeah yeah, I've seen gardens. But I was awestruck! I took literally 100 photos! You get just a handful here. The colors! The patterns! The repetitions with variations! The rhythms! I could have spent the day sitting on a bench and gazing.

 

And then, we were back in Paris. I stopped at a couple of well known highlights, and I went shopping. In the left bank neighborhood of the ship, I had spotted Galleries Lafayette - not THE Galleries, but a new one, attached to a modern mall. With my friend, we went looking for accessories. I got a couple of scarves, lovely! But not from the designer level (but no less lovely for that). Then we went to a supermarket, and I got some spices and blends. Everyone complained at Christmas that our Norwegian bread didn't have enough cardamom flavor, even though the baker tripled the amount from the recipe. I was very excited to buy some whole cardamom seeds, and I look forward to grinding them for our Julekage at Christmas. I picked up a couple of things for gifts, if I can bear to give them away.

I packed up, rode a Tesla taxi to the airport (my first time in a Tesla!) and had a completely uneventful flight home. When I walked in the door, I was completely endoggened, and knew I was home.