 |
| Honfleur |
Caroline came back to the apartment at 9am to return our
security deposit and we left Caen. There
was a bombed out church close by our apartment.
I would have loved to have seen more of it or learn more about it, but
there were really no signs that fully explained it. Just something that said it was bombed during
WWII (really??) and that was that.
 |
St. Catherine's Church
in Honfleur |
We had a long day today!
We decided to visit Honfleur, Rouen, and then on to Paris. Our goal was to walk around the Eiffel Tower
at night. Hmmm….best laid plans.
 |
| le petit mascot! |
We arrived in Honfluer, which is where impressionism
(painting) is said to have started.
We
found great parking (thanks again Rick) and were able to walk over to the
square port area for which it is most famous.
It was a cloudy day, so the colors were muted, but it was still very
pretty.
We actually both thought that the
colors would have been more vibrant, but they were muted and drab, even without
the cloudy day.
I guess upon reflection,
sunlight wouldn’t have helped too much, hahaha!!
Tried to get a coffee, but alas, shitty
service seems to be the norm in France.
No coffee…on to the church.
 |
altar in Notre Dame
Rouen |
The church of St. Catherine is an odd structure.
As Rick Steves says, it looks more like a
town hall than a church.
The inside
really doesn’t help shed that impression. It was noteworthy to visit because
there were some unique things about it, but otherwise, you could miss it.
Found a place to get a coffee and the lady
there noticed Maggie Moo and commented on “le petit mascot.”
I love that!!
That is what she’ll be called from now on, haha!
 |
| statue of St. Thomas |
After the coffee, we walked back to the car and went to
Rouen.
In medieval times it was the 2
nd
largest city in France because of its port.
And, it has the churches to match that moniker.
There would be no reason to miss mass then or
now.
If you couldn’t make it to one
church, walk 100 yards and voila….there was probably another one there or in
sight!
 |
Stone staircase in the
cathedral |
Parking was “fun” but we got to where we needed to be and
walked from there to the Notre Dame Cathedral of Rouen.
Unfortunately, it took a lot of damage from
WWII, but it’s long been repaired.
They also are repairing/restoring a lot of it, so there were a few statues inside the church too. There
are a few things of note in this church.
First, there are several crypts containing the remains of notable people
in history.
Or parts of them anyway!
 |
final resting place of Rollo's
femur... |
|
Rollo, the first Duke of Normandy, is buried there.
Or rather, his thigh bone is.
Over time, his grave was plundered and his mortal
remains removed bit by bit.
Gross….bad
jujubes if you ask me!!
The heart of
Richard the Lionhearted is buried here too.
Just his heart…nothing else….in a full-sized crypt just like Rollo’s
femur. And a couple of other English Kings, who apparently were also Dukes of
Normandy.
There were numerous stained
glass windows blown out during WWII that have been replaced with clear glass
instead and some side chapels where you can buy candles of course and pray!
 |
| Notre Dame |
 |
| The Plague Cemetery |
We left the cathedral and ate a quick lunch on the square
and then continued with the walk recommended by Rick Steves.
Next on the list was a church (we didn’t go
in) and a Plague cemetery that now houses an art school in its buildings.
The only way you could tell it was a cemetery
was by the deathly marking in the timbers around the buildings at about 10 feet
up.
There was a large cross, maybe 15-20
feet tall that was in the center of the courtyard.
 |
Statue of St. Joan
of Arc |
We
left there and we walked up to where St. Joan of Arc was burned at the
stake. There is a modern church on the
site and a small multilingual plaque that marks the spot where she and
numerous others throughout the centuries were put to death. There is a stone statue across from the
marker and a beautiful statue inside.
 |
The site where
St. Joan of Arc
was burned. |
|
The inside of this church has stained glass windows from
another church that might have been bombed during WWII….I cannot remember…I
just know they are not original to this church.
From the outside, it is supposed to look like a Viking ship.
I thought it looked more like a hat that
warriors wore in the Middle Ages.
Another candle, some more prayers said and we left.
Took a picture or two of the beautiful clock and made our
way back to the car, where we hopped in and tried to make it out of town with
as little fuss as possible. Tom-Tom was
a little bossy and didn’t know the detours, but once we followed
the signs out of town, she was a little happier :o)
 |
| St. Joan of Arc statue inside the church |
Life went well, as I was able to drive 130 km (78 mph) for a
good part of the trip.
The killer were
the tolls!
During the day, we must have
spent close to $40 on tolls!!
Holy cow,
that was crazy!
We paid the last toll,
Tom-Tom didn’t recognize John’s requests to go to CDG airport, and we hit major
traffic.
Again, imagine rush hour on
I95/395/495 if you’ve lived that nightmare and you get the idea.
 |
Clock that only has
an hour hand |
It was a parking lot. And I had to pee. And we needed gas. And
Tom-Tom continued to be petulant.
So….I drove along in first gear for about 10 miles
probably. That was fun. (Again, sarcasm in case you didn’t catch
it). Found a Shell station on the side
where we could fill up and pee and then got back into the mess. Several police cars and ambulances went screaming
by, but at no time did we see an accident.
Finally, Tom-Tom and the roads decided to cooperate together
and she got us toward CDG. After a
couple times around, I managed to find the place to drop of the car and thus
began the 2nd part of our nightmare:
trying to get from CDG to Paris.
 |
| Cuteness! |
In case you haven’t gathered, I have a scathing disregard
for American credit cards’ lack of a chip that is what Europe uses in its
automatic machines!
UGH!!!!
After buying what we thought were tickets to
Paris, we discovered that in fact, they were just the metro tickets that we
needed and not the RER tickets that we needed.
Good news, we needed the metro tickets.
Bad news, the machines from which we could buy the RER tickets accepted
credit cards (which we have) with the chip (which we don’t have).
The machines also do not take any paper
money.
This is ridiculous considering
the tickets to Paris cost 9.50E.
This meant that John got to stand there with all our (I
mean, MY) luggage, which was too much.
UGH!! I stood in line to pay with
my inadequate credit card and was helped by a grumpy, uninterested clerk who
was more interested in her cell phone text than paying attention to me. Got the tickets we needed and I got one for
John for tomorrow’s trip so he was all set.
 |
Such cute houses in
Rouen! |
Then the hour long ride to Gare du Nord to catch the metro
to Bastille to get to our hotel.
If you
are handicapped and want to ride the Parisian metro….too dang bad.
It’s not going to happen!
At Gare du Nord, there were escalators going
up, but none going down the two flights of stairs to the platform.
Luckily, two very nice ladies helped me carry
two things down while I schlepped the other two and John took his.
Merci beaucoup!!
Got on the metro and then encountered some loud, rude
Parisians…..I felt a little better I suppose because it’s not only Americans
who are loud and rude. Got off at our
stop, only to realize that we were in the freaking bowels of the metro system
and had 5 or 6 flights of stairs to climb up with no escalators in sight. Or elevators.
UGH!! I really, really, really
hate all the luggage I have. Next year,
I wear one outfit and wash it every night :o)
As long as it’s clean, no one should notice, right? Hahaha!!
 |
| More cuteness in Rouen! |
Once outside, the weather was nice and blissfully cool and
just beginning to sprinkle.
Luckily, it
didn’t really matter because we didn’t get wet on our walk to the hotel and we
were able to get into our room with little difficulty.
Well, there was barely enough room for my
luggage and me in the teeeeeeeensy elevator.
It said it could fit three people?
Maybe three toddlers!
The hotel room had free wifi and air conditioning, so these
two Americans were blissfully happy to be there! We had planned to go see the Eiffel Tower,
but it took us almost 5 hours from the time we arrived at the traffic jam to
the time we sat down to dinner at 9pm. Thus, no time to go downtown. We were tired, sweaty, irritated, and
grumpy. Had a decent dinner, but nothing
amazing. Finally had a crepe with
sugar. That was good :o)
Came back, John got ready for his flight tomorrow (we
hope!!) and he checked the loads and we both quickly answered some emails and
hopped in bed in a blissfully cold room.
He had to get up at 5am to make sure he could do the backward route to
the airport. Originally he was going to
have time to leisurely make it out there to get his flight, so we decided to
stay in downtown Paris. Best laid
plans…..if we’d have known then how things would be, we would have stayed
middle distance between the airport and Gare du Lyon.
