Ah, Bonjour! Day 7

Trop Amusant

The ship/boat sailed from its dock in Rouen overnight to the very small (pop. 500) village of Les Andelys, not to be confused with Grand Andelys up the road a piece.  It's a very charming little place, not spared Allied bombing during the post D-Day assault.  That's a common theme throughout Normandy, how the carpet bombings (remember pinpoint bombing/GPS was not available) decimated so many of the little towns from the coast on the way inland.  Very prevalent in the minds of the French, not even a blip on our radar screens, eh?

Seen on the Seine as we sailed

This morning as we sailed, the chef, the quite remarkable Ali, demonstrated how to make Tarte de Citron aka lemon tarte with a meringue topping.  Delicioux.

If we're in France, in any city, there must be a church (eglise) or cathedral (cathedral) or two or more in any town.  Today's was the Church of Saint Saveur, one of the few churches built during the 14th century not named after Our Lady, aka Notre Dame.  Perhaps you thought the only Notre Dame in France is the famous one in Paris.  Au contraire.

Statue in front of the church

Liked this figure holding up the column.  Interesting story about the stained glass in this church.  The people of the parish anticipated that bombings might occur with the invasion and the stained glass in their church would be destroyed.  To that end, they dismantled the windows, piece by piece, wrapped it in tissue, and stored it.  After the war, the windows were reconstructed.  The film Monuments Men chronicles the work done by a small group of American art curators, restorers and artchitects to save some of Europe's most important art works and buildings.  Well worth a watch, plus it stars George Clooney and Matt Damon.

Following the visit to the church, we walked up the hill to Chateau Gaillard, a 10th century castle built by Richard the Lionhearted to defend his piece of the Seine valley from the French.

It's so hard to believe such structures have been left, if not preserved, for centuries.

This is called a rampart wall.  See the ripples in it?  This is so the defenders could throw boulders, etc. from the top and they would bounce against the building on the way down, in the hope the weapon would push outward and land on those attacking the castle.  What a life!

Today's selfie with the castle and Seine in the background.  Dan-o was on the ship, taking a nap.  And yes, we had to climb up to the castle from street level.  

Beautiful views from the top of the hill

 

Oh, look!  Here we have a photo of the siblings with our sister-in-law/wife, Lori.

On the way through Les Andyles, we passed a shop with a guard dog, a small, basically unfriendly pup.  My brother warned me not to try to make friends with it and sure enough, on the way back through town as we retraced our steps, the little stinker nipped at my ankles!  Gotta love it.

Back at the ship, we enjoyed a nice nap before a cocktail hour, where we chatted with a number of other guests, including a couple originally from Owatonna who know a woman and her daughter that I taught in my Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) classes a gazillion years ago in Edina.  I also met a couple from Missouri; he worked for the Missouri Press Association and was familiar with Lang Rogers, my daughter-in-law's grandfather who purchased the Joplin Gazette when the paper printed unflattering information about Lang's business in the area.  Both gentlemen were wearing identifying shirts (a University of Minnesota Hawaiian shirt, and there's an oxymoron if you need one, the second a windbreaker) and all I had to do was go up to them and comment on their attire.  So easy to make acquaintances and break the ice!

Following dinner, there was a movie music trivia contest and we eked out a win by one point.  Afterwards a ton of fun music from the movies was played, there was dancing, and it was too much fun, especially in light of tomorrow being the final day of the cruise.  However, from what we can discern from a chart distributed tonight, Dan and I appear to be the last ones off the ship to be ferried to the airport, so we will be getting the most of our time on the Radgrid.

A demain.