Wandering back in time - Rouen

Went to bed by 11 and up and still foggy at 9, that’s both me and the weather.  We ordered a raisin loaf and a fresh baguette to be delivered for breakfast.  We had also bought mini quiches yesterday at the bakery, so we were all ready to go. 

The smell of the bread and the coffee was enough to get even me out of bed.  After our mini breakfast we head for a walk around the grounds.  It is very peaceful and quite beautiful.  Memories of books and movies come rushing back at you, especially the Three Musketeers.

 

Can definitely picture Marie Antoinette and her ladies sitting around this table eating a chocolate eclair (which I just had from the local bakery) and being rowed around the island on the little rowboats they had.  

This is a restaurant right next door to our property.  They have a dock so you can go by boat if you like. 

Not being sure what the weather might hold in store for us, we pack up a bag with raincoats, sweaters, extra socks, etc and off we set for Rouen.  Rouen was invaded by the Vikings until finally the King of France said you can have Rouen if you leave the rest of France, particularly Paris alone.  Nothing Jim likes more than being able to quote Viking history to me.  Today I gave him some ammunition.

Is there anything more fun that sitting in a cafe, outside still, watching the people go by.  :)  especially with a glass of red wine to keep you toasty

oh man I could gain weight just on the smells coming out of the bakeries

The Gros Horloge , the clock was made in 1389, one of the oldest mechanisms in France.

A number of the buildings in Rouen were built with big Oak beams to support. them.  I can definitely picture D'Artagnan and his Musketeers have a rousing good time in a pub being supported by these beams.  

Thinking these might make a surprise Christmas present.......

Did I mention there were chocolate shops everywhere.  

Almost bought a new pair of high heels.  After all our walking today, I found the perfect pair, made of chocolate.  :)

Rouen has a wonderful mix of new and old.  Buildings that could be saved were saved and ones that had to be demolished were fixed up to add to the wonderful flavour of the old town.  Even the McDonald's has kept the original facade with the big oak beams.

The building with all the flags classified itself as an "Auberge"  "tres expensive" restaurant

This is all that remains of the castle where Joan of Arc was held captive and tortured before being found guilty of heresy.  

  The Joan of Arc Church was built on the site where she was burnt at the stake.  The design is amazing and reflects what a wonderful person she was while incorporating in the feel of the original square and meeting place of the city of Rouen from the 1400s.

The roof depicts the flames reaching up as she was burnt at the stake.  

The architect incorporated the market square into the church plan as this square was the hub of the town in the 1400s.

 The stained glass was saved from the original church on these grounds which was destroyed during WWII.

The town itself is made up of tiny alleys and squares filled with market stalls, carrying fresh vegetables, flowers, baked goods, local and imported cheeses and wine.  Not to mention fresh fish and some amazing meats.  

I looked over at one area and saw something wiggle it's antennae and thought oh shoot there's a cockroach, it was a live shrimpy thing  (shiver) 

As I move a little down the stall, I thought oh my goodness what is that smell, it reminds me of my childhood home and sure enough there were some kippers one of my dad's favourite Sunday breakfasts.  

The Musee des Beaux Arts has some spectacular works of art and it's FREE :)  There were some amazing renditions of Joan of Arc and I even found a few Monets.  

As you moved closer to this picture, the image moved up and down the steel cylinder.  Pretty cool.  

What would be an art museum without 100s of religious pictures.  These 2 were quite stunning.

Well if you actually made it to the bottom of my blog you are probably wondering where the pictures of the Notre Dame Church are.  I was getting a little worried that this blog might be too big (which it is), so I am working on a separate blog of the church.  Which is amazing.

Bonsoir, off to the coast tomorrow weather permitting.

Our First Day in France

Today is a travel day, which means leaving the house early to get away from my 3 cats who have been locked inside on possibly the last 20 degree day of the year.  They are not happy, which means I’m not happy, so off Jim and I head to hang out at the airport so the cats will leave us alone.  

 

We check in 3 hours early for a flight to Montreal, we are the first in line and head over to the Sheraton for a glass of champagne.  Not a bad way to start the holiday.  Head back over at 4:30 and are boarding our flight to Montreal at 5.  Our connecting flight to Paris doesn’t leave until 10, which means we can have a nice meal and walk around the Trudeau terminal in Montreal.  Jim even gets to see Auston Matthews score 4 goals in his opening game.  Thank goodness we were back on the plane for the OT loss.  Lots of grumbling about the goalie.  I’m not interested.  We have bulkhead seats.  So excited to have all this extra leg room.  But you guessed it, always a downfall.  You don’t have a seat in front of you to put your junk under, ie kobo, water, chocolate, ear phones, they are all sitting on my lap. Also everyone who needs the bathroom uses your little area as a holding pattern.  Lots of wiggling going on. 

That great plan about getting 4 to 5 hours sleep just didn’t happen, the plane was too busy and we were too excited.

I was totally surprised about how many people seemed to only speak French on our flight and at the Trudeau terminal.  It was a very strange feeling and only got stranger.  When we finally landed we couldn’t find anyone who spoke English.  Not a problem everything seemed pretty straight forward.  Just needed to pick up our rental car and off we went.  NOT.  No one in terminal 3 knew where the car rental was.  Information, taxi stand people, police officer, janitor, other travellers, all pointed us in a different direction.  The police officer told us to just wait by the road and the car would come to us.  Yep, like that was going to happen.  We toddled over to Terminal 1, stopped at information, just follow the blue sidewalk and you will come to it.  Oops, NOT, but we did come to Terminal 2 and there in the distance was the car rental.  Took us 45 minutes to find our car.  YEAH, off we go, thank goodness it has GPS and it was in English. 

1.5 hours later we have arrived at our beautiful destination.  “Le Manoir Des Deux Amants” on the Seine River.  This is one very large river that seems to meander through a fair bit of France.  We have a beautiful 1 bedroom with full kitchen.      

 Everything is unpacked and we are feeling the need for a nap.  2 hours later we are up and at em, which means we are starving.  The place we are staying at is in Connelles which is a tiny little spot with not much going on other than a slowly meandering river and some ducks floating by.  Thankfully just 10 clicks up the road in Pont Saint Pierre is the amazing 5 star “Auberge D’Andelle”. 

The roads are just as meandering and windy as the river but much narrower thankfully they had lots of speed bumps to slow us down.  We were passing this marshy area and I said to Jim this would be a great place for deer when what to our wondering eye should dash onto the road.  NOT a deer, a gigantic 300 lb boar.  Remember the one in Game of Thrones that killed Robert Baraetheon bigger than that.  The way I was screaming I think Jim thought I was speaking french.  These things are like big squirrels, wasn't sure which way it should run, thankfully not at us as we came to a screeching stop.  This is not an actual picture of our boar, but definitely reminded me of it.  :)

Driving into town what should we pass but a bakery, wait did I say pass, nope park the car and out we got for an eclair and a quiche for the morning.  

I wasn’t really expecting a full French experience tonight, but the place was beautiful, the staff lovely and we managed to muddle our way through ordering without knowing what either of the 3 of us was talking about. 

 Jim thought he was ordering a red wine, said "Oui" and out came this amazing orange drink.  We think it might have been a calvado (apple brandy) or champagne.  Either way delish.  I may start every meal with this drink from now on.  :)

   I had a lovely chauteaubriand in a peppercorn sauce while Jim had a full 4 course meal with foie gras, lamb, 3 cheese walnut salad and a crumble.  They are famous for their apples in this area.  I did help him with the crumble.

My Chateaubriand

A much slower trip home in the dark and within minutes Jim was off to sleep at 9:30.  Whew, I had some time to play with my pictures and blog.  Can't wait for tomorrow.  Off to Rouen.  BonSoir