Category: France

Rouen France – the Capital of Normandy – a lovely city where we stayed for a few days prior to going to Paris. We had NO specific plans other than to just relax and walk around the City. We stayed across the street from the main train station and very close to the Old Section of town.

 

During our walks we passed a number of Beaux Arts buildings next to sagging Half-Timber buildings, and even some places that appeared to have been damaged as a result of WWII.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During our visit to the Museum of Beaux Arts , we were most likely the only Americans in the place. Yes there were other tourists, it is the end of the 2-week school break, but most of the other folks were French.

 

It is enjoyable to be visiting places throughout our trip where the normal USA Tourist doesn’t come – particularly during this time of year. Rarely did we hear English being spoken, mostly French.

Claude Monet loved Rouen because of its light ,which reflects on golden sandstone building material off of the Seine. The Museum’s cathedral painting, however, is shrouded in a grey veil. The Joan of Arc room showed multiple artists through the ages who have portrayed The Maid, visionary and martyr. Enormous religious paintings rescued from churches during the Revolution fill many rooms, but are more easily viewed than those at the Louvre. Shops closed for All Saints Day, but fortunately for us, PAUL eateries were open for lunch, even late lunch.

Rouen is known for its Notre Dame Cathedral, with its Tour de Beurre (butter tower) financed by the sale of indulgences for the consumption of butter during Lent. The cathedral’s gothic façade (completed in the 16th century) was the subject of a series of paintings by Claude Monet (several of which we saw in the Museum of Beaux Arts).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another well know feature within the old section of Rouen is the Renaissance clock mounted in an arch crossing the Rue du Gros-Horloge. This clock, the oldest in France, was built in 1389 and shows the phases of the moon and the days of the week. The façade represents a golden sun with 24 rays on a starry blue background and measures 2.5 meters (a bit more than 8 feet) in diameter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We left Rouen heading for Paris as we needed to turn in our car for shipment to the USA. We are now without our own transportation – and are heading to London on Sunday via the Chunnel and EuroStar train. More about that later.

All my life I have known about D-Day and the beaches of Normandy. While I didn’t have any relatives (that I know of) actually involved in this effort, my father, uncles, grandfather were all in the Navy and so my military history was something that was part of growing up. While my relatives were all in the Pacific, Normandy and its beaches were certainly part of all history of World War II.

 

 

 

 

 

For our visit to the area, we stayed in Bayeux where, I came to learn was the FIRST village or town the Allied Forces liberated! Little did I know when I made the reservation at the hotel.

One of the first memorials I saw was a plaque mounted across the street from the Cathedral which states, in English, “To the glory of God and in the Memory of all Ranks of the 50^th Northhumbrian Division who laid down their lives for justice freedom and the liberation of France in the assault on the Beaches…” I was to find more of these kinds of plagues as we toured around the area.

Now more than 70 years after D-Day, the Normandy coast is peaceful with lovely seaside towns and picturesque beaches. Many of the towns have names of the form something-sur-mer; sur-mer is French for “on the sea”. Behind the coast is an old-fashioned farming landscape of grain fields, cattle and pastures, hedges and farmhouses. However, the memories of war and D-Day are engrained in the landscape.

Along the 80-km (50-mile) D-Day invasion coast there are the remains of German gun emplacements and bunkers, while war memorials and monuments mark where the allied forces landed. Inland, there are monuments in almost every village and at every bend in the road,

 

for there is barely a square acre that wasn’t fought over. Along the coast and inland there are numerous D-Day related museums. Only by visiting do you get a proper idea of the vastness of the enterprise.

We started at the west end and visited Utah followed by Omaha both of which were American force Beach assault areas. From there we visited the American Cemetery and then a bit of Arromanches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the American Cemetery there are various sections – I looked at a number of crosses – solders from Texas, California, New York, Oklahoma, Illinois – from all over the country. All with dates of death within a few weeks of June 6^th 1944.

Arromanches still has a portion of the pier created by sinking several ships bow to stern. Once these were sunk, the upper decks were destroyed allowing a platform for a pier to be created and thus other ships could tie up next to this “pier” and off load equipment, men and supplies

You cannot leave these areas without feeling a profound sense of loss – over 450,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded or went missing during the Battle of Normandy. While the battle started on the Beaches, it quickly moved to hedgerows, towns, villages, farmhouses and every yard gained was painful. A staggering number in such a short period of time. Along the roadside, you see these ‘can’ shaped monuments that mark the progress of liberation from the ground zero spot at the Beach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, we visited the area, saw the sights and left. However, you cannot visit, see the area and not be struck with how vast the landing force was and how much coordinated planning was required to get all the ships, men, equipment staged and moved across the English Channel.

The rolling green hills of Normandy, dotted with cattle and quilted with corn and wheat, cover peaceably the ruins, graves, and body littered fields with bombs falling around the roar of heavy artillery. Caen was rubble, as Germans made their last stand on the western front, and only constant bombardment above and around finally sent them out of the area. After an area was liberated, German soldiers of war (POW’s) were tasked with cleanup directed by American Corps of Engineers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Small farms are still a viable way of life in the Normandy countryside, perhaps as a form of healing.

 

 

 

Mont Saint-Michel is, geographically speaking, a tidal isle. To you and me, this means that when the tide is low the mount is connected to the mainland, to Lower Normandy, by a narrow strip of land, but when the tide is high the mount is an island that propels 92 meters (300 ft.) into the sky some 200 meters (650 ft.) off the coast of France.

This is what makes Mont Saint-Michel so special; what makes it breathtakingly beautiful. Romantic. Spooky. Stay for a night in one of the isle’s numerous small but comfortable hotels, and I expect you would hear the sea drumming the rocks, the distant coastline wrapped in a light mist, and you only have to close your eyes to imagine wolves howling at hobgoblins and demons and old warriors, maces and axes upraised– why not a vampire, too? – lurking behind the isle’s centuries-old ramparts.

But beyond such Halloween fantasy, the Mount is one of France’s most visited tourist attractions – 3.5 million visitors annually. Therefore, once you have passed through Mont Saint-Michel’s wooden gateway and are on its main street –

Grande Rue, narrow, steep and winding its way to the abbey, now over a thousand years old (Benedictine monks began to construct it when they settled on the islet in 966) – you will be back in the land of the living. Grande Rue is a moveable feast of seafood restaurants, crêperies (pancake bars) and souvenir shops that sell anything from tiny pewter Archangel Michaels to mass-produced tapestries. Easy for us vagabonds to pass by without stopping on our trek to the top.

The mount’s main attraction is the abbey. To reach it from Grande Rue, we climbed something like 19 sets of stairs – or at least that’s what my step tracker said. At moments there are great views out over the bay and village, but the climb does seem to go on and on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got to the abbey and bought our tickets and discovered there was an English guided tour starting immediately – so up to the Terrace as quickly as we could to catch up with the guide.

Our Guide, a lovely young woman, whose name I never quite caught, was very knowledgeable about the Abbey (well she is a licensed professional after all) and took us on a tour lasting about an hour and a half – through the

sanctuary,

 

 

 

 

 

 

crypts, gardens, formal spaces and

 

working spaces including the big wheel used to haul stuff up the side of the rock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We chose to eat a late lunch overlooking the beaches rather than hiking out on to them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all it was a fantastic day and the weather could not have been better.