Giverny

We decided that we would retrace our journey a little and drive back towards Paris and spend a day in Giverny and hope that it would not be too crowded. We had intended to make a stop, to see some part of the Normandy beach landing areas, but managed to miss the exit in Bayeux.
Giverny is near to Vernon, where we had inadvertently passed  through on our trip out to Normandy, so it was a bit familiar! The village of Giverny is quite small and in a beautiful location. Our B & B for the night was tucked away in a small lane and was quiet and just lovely.
The central parking lot in the village was very civilized with shade trees on every row, maybe a model we could emulate.

 We had reservations for dinner at the Baudy Hotel in the evening, which was just a short walk from the B&B.

This is where Monet, Cezanne and all the other artists associated with Giverny gathered, so it was a must, to see and visit. We had a very good meal, starting with "aperitif locale" through terrine, brochette of lamb, poached fish and on  to a mixed fruit sorbet topped with whipped cream, (that was Diane's desert, the memory of which, she is still drooling over).

Standing in line at the entrance to Monet's house and garden, we struck up a conversation with the people behind us, only to discover that they were from San Francisco. The parents had just retired and were taking a European trip to celebrate accompanied by their daughter who used to work at YouTube and is now at a start-up in SF called "poptalk".
 Later in the gardens we met a couple from Otis, Oregon. It's a small world!

The gardens were not too crowded and there were flowers everywhere. The gardens and grounds are very well maintained and looked well cared for, which must be a challenge with the huge crowds of visitors that arrive during the summer months.

The weather kept threatening rain and the temperature was "spring like", hence the rain gear.

We toured Monet's house. It was inspiring to walk through areas where he had lived and worked. This area was a sitting room, his huge studio is now the gift gallery.

I really liked this kitchen area with the great stove and all of the walls tiled.

The streets in the village had a really nice feel, flowers everywhere and we saw no trash anywhere.

We walked to the far end of the village to visit the church where Monet is buried, quite an austere church, but with a graveyard full of very elaborate markers.

Also in the graveyard was a memorial to airmen that lost their lives when their Lancaster bomber crashed close to the village during WWII. It was clear that the local residents cared deeply.

The memorial incorporates part of the crashed bombers propeller.

The grave listed all of the names, most were 20years old with the exception of the pilot, who was aged 32. I could not help thinking that if I had been born a few years earlier,  my name could have been on that stone. A sobering thought, as we still seem to think that wars are the answer.

There were many poppies of all colors, I could not help trying for a hand held close up!

Cool guy!

For some reason there was a large building full of old engines in various states of restoration. A nice counterpoint, I thought, to all of the wonderful Monet garden scenes which abound.

Giverny was a great experience and, at last, I can pronounce it pretty much like it should be.
On to the Loire region, stay tuned.

Normandy

We managed to get out of Charles De Gaulle airport fairly easily, traffic was light and the car's GPS seemed to be working well. We were bowling along a great French motorway and then the GPS voice, female, and with a great BBC accent, sent us off the motorway and through some industrial towns. After several miles and many roundabouts, we stopped at a patisserie in a town called Vernon to take a break and try and see just where we were on our journey to Normandy. Our initial look on Mapquest indicated motorways most of the way, so something seemed amiss. Light-bulb goes off in my head, what settings were in the GPS? Made the change from "avoid tolls" and we were quickly on a tollway to Normandy.

Western France is much flatter than I realized with mile after mile of farmland, it could be Kansas if it were not for the cheese and wine and .....
We eventually got to Jeff and Oriana's place, my brother and sister-in-law, and had a great welcome and reunion. We last saw them five years ago and we had not been to Normandy for many years.

 Their house, an old French farmhouse that they have, and continue, to renovate.

My brother and me, you can see he got the hair gene!

They have beautiful landscaping and it was a lovely day, so a bit of lawn moving was called for. The weather cooperated quite well, although it was pretty cold for the middle of May, even the locals were complaining.

A visit to a local flea market, much the same wherever they are held.

Market day in the nearby town of Portbail.

Diane searching out treasures.

Portbail has a significant tidal range which, when the water is in, it covers all of this area and at times, close to the top of the bridge arches you can see on the right of the panorama.

 A bit closer view.

This is the name of the small village where my brother lives.

It was sunny enough at times, as you can see.

A good friend of Jeff and Oriana's, who now lives in the US, was paying a visit with all of her family and they were staying nearby, so a celebration ensued. (The little Sony alpha 6000 did pretty well in the dark.)

That's everyone at another gathering for food and wine, I do so love France!

Did I mention the food!

 A fortified castle called Pirou, which is in a very good state of repair, still has a moat and the obvious remainder of a gate that must have had a portcullis at one time. The castle was constructed during the period covering the 11th to 14th centuries.

Up on the ramparts, there are arrow slits along the wall shown on the left.

There was also a very large cider press in an out building. The large beam at the top pivoted on the vertical structure pressing down on a stack of apples contained in large 8ft square "boxes". Pressure applied with the large wheel and screw mechanism resulted in the juice being squeezed from the apples.

An English sign among the French!

 And there is the food again, crabs bought live at the market, dispatched with thanks and about to be consumed with some some great bread, cheese, etc. etc

 Home made desserts.

A wonderful beach bar and restaurant called "Le Bac a Sable".  Yes, you can get Guinness as well as French wine.

A mobile wood fire barbeque at the side of the road.

A lovely lunch at a restaurant called "Auberge de L'Ouve" where the meat is grilled over the fire in the hearth, next to our table. It was also noticeable that the customers were all local, we were the only outsiders in the dining room.
A great way to end our stay in Normandy and set up for the next stops that Oriana and Diane arranged.
On to Giverny, stay tuned,

Paris Part Two

There is so much to see in Paris that a week is way too short a visit to do it any kind of justice. There are museums and churches around every corner as well as magnificent public spaces.

We believe this is where the mayor of Paris carries out the work of the city.
There was a man creating large bubbles for no apparent reason, but they floated into the field of view quite nicely and all of the passing children enjoyed.

And then you get churches like this with apartments pressing close.

The Opera

The Senate, with lots of guards with their versions of AK47's, is set at the head of the Luxembourg gardens.

We went to several markets and they are quite an adventure. In the large one near the Bastille, which operates on Thursdays and Saturdays. We went on Thursday which is mainly meat, fish and vegetable day. There were also quite a few stalls with clothes and household items and several food stalls with coffee and crepes made to order. The fish and meat stalls were a sight to behold, I just wish we had these in Oregon!

This is the general view of the Bastille market with the monument in the distance, which is where the market starts.

The photos above are from another market that we happened across, quite a bit smaller, but we spotted a couple of the same vendors that were at the Bastille market the previous day.

We wanted to take a boat tour on the Seine and this photo shows the boat before it began to fill up. We were advised to get to the dock early to avoid the crowds, so we took the first boat of the day. The boat moved quite quickly, so it was a bit difficult to get any good images.

This was our narrator and he spoke very good English as well as French (of course). The river was very high, so we had a slightly different itinerary from normal.

All of the bridges we passed under had some form of art attached to them, isn't that a nice idea?

Parisians measure the flood stage of the Seine by how far the river comes up the statue. Not long ago a flood came up to his head, so you can see we had a way to go.

On this bridge near where we stayed, there were always photographers out with tripods etc. This was my handheld version, David W, you would be proud.

Tree avenues in the Luxembourg gardens.

Lots of people go to the garden on their lunch break and this day it was quite warm and sunny.

Coffee was always fun and we found a lot of different places and only once did we go to Starbucks. In the last one above, we found some customers also partaking of their morning glass of rose wine, very civilized.

One of the sights we visited was Sainte Chappelle, with its incredible stained glass windows. We were lucky to be there on an overcast morning that made photographing the windows a little bit easier (but not that much!) It is hard to grasp how all of this was accomplished so many years ago.

We also got to visit the Musee d'Orsay when it was open late and the ticket lines were short. The museum is housed in a former railway station built between 1898 and 1900. It is quite a wonderful place with mostly French impressionist artists from the mid 1800's to mid 1900's.

Vincent van Gogh self portrait.

I think I liked this version the best, the brush strokes were fascinating.

We went to visit the area around the Poilane bakery in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district. It is an amazing place with famously decorated breads as seen in the window above.

This photo is in the courtyard of Saint Sulpice as we near the end of our last full day in Paris. We realized the extend of what we did NOT see on our taxi ride to the Opera area to catch the Roissy Bus to the airport. We kept seeing areas that we had not explored all within short walks of where we stayed. We picked up our car from the Hertz rental place in Charles De Gaulle airport after a very long wait at the service desk and then had to wait again for a car to make it's appearance. I am glad we got to the airport early as we faced about a four plus hour ride to our next stop on the Normandy coast.
More of that later......