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France’s Finest

September - October 2018
While we have visited parts of France before, this will be our first trip to spend time in the interior. We’re looking forward to beautiful art, lovely architecture, wonderful history and delicious food. Read more
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  • France’s Finest

    The Beginning of the Journey

    September 17, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 79 °F

    Since I retired we have begun every trip by piling all of our luggage on the couch in the great room just as we are ready to leave the house. Sometimes we take a lot of luggage; sometimes we take very little. As we have become more experienced travelers, we have consistently reduced the amount of luggage we take. What you see here is the luggage we will be taking for a three-week river cruise through the heart of France. All of these bags are carry-on’s. We will not check anything.Read more

  • France’s Finest
    Day 2

    Early at DeGaulle Airport

    September 19, 2018 in France ⋅ ⛅ 63 °F

    We arrived early at Charles DeGaulle Airport and are looking for the Viking representatives. Our flight to JFK was delayed twice so a very kind American Airlines agent arranged for us to get a direct flight from Charlotte to Paris. The flights to New York were further delayed by the remnants of Hurricane Florence, so we arrived in Paris earlier than we expected. Our Viking representative just met us so we’re ready to see France.Read more

  • France’s Finest
    Day 2

    Onboard the Viking Rinda

    September 19, 2018 in France ⋅ ⛅ 66 °F

    We were just welcomed aboard the Viking Rinda here on the west side of Paris. The shuttle will not be leaving for the Eiffel Tower until noon so we will not have time to go to the Museum Marmotan Monet. We will, however, be able to go into town or to take a walking tour of St. Germaine en-Lay, where our boat is docked. There will also be wine and cheese in the Aquavit Lounge later today. Each of the Viking River Longboats is named for a Norse deity. Rinda is the goddess of winter, snow and ice.Read more

  • France’s Finest
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    Day 2

    Petit Palais and the Orangerie

    September 19, 2018 in France ⋅ ☀️ 75 °F

    The Petit Palais has a wonderful exhibit of French Impressionistic works painted in England. Beginning in 1870 the Franco-Prussian War forced many of these artists to seek refuge in London. English tastes and preferences caused these French artists to alter their style so that their works would sell to English buyers. Next we visited the Orangerie in the Tuileries to see their display of the Water Lilies of Claude Monet, as well as the works of Cézanne, Pissarro and Renoir. We were only a few blocks from the church where Cesar Franck served as organist for most of his adult life. We were within a mile of the place where Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel changed the way we think about music. Much of my understanding of the world and of beauty was formed within a stone’s throw of where we sit tonight.Read more

  • France’s Finest
    Day 3

    Notre Dame

    September 20, 2018 in France ⋅ ⛅ 68 °F

    We are certainly in Paris now. Notre Dame, the hotel de Ville and the Íle de Cité provide our destinations this morning. The weather is perfect and Paris is beautiful. I asked our guide about the location of the University of Paris. She told me that the original campus for the University was on the south bank of the Seine River literally a stone’s throw from here. I am getting an impression that I once sensed in New York, specifically, that many of the ideas that formed the world in which I grew up originated in an area of less than one square mile in each of just a few cities: London, Paris, New York, and Vienna. Hegel lived just a short train ride away from them in Nuremberg. Gershwin and Ravel knew each other. Freud met his friends at his neighborhood coffee shop in Vienna. Chopin, George Sand, and Victor Hugo all lived within a couple of blocks of the Place Vendome in Paris. Dickens and George Bernard Shaw lived within a half mile of each other in London. Ideologically speaking, it is a very small world.Read more

  • France’s Finest
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    Day 3

    The Louvre

    September 20, 2018 in France ⋅ ⛅ 77 °F

    The Louvre is the home of the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, the Wiged Victory of Samothrace and Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of John the Baptist. Most of our viewing has been done over the heads of 500 Chinese tourists. Still, it is wonderful to see the original paintings of works I’ve seen only in books all my life.Read more

  • France’s Finest
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    Day 4

    Giverny and Monet

    September 21, 2018 in France ⋅ 🌬 63 °F

    Glenda was in heaven today as we visited the estate of Claude Monet and Giverny. Our guide told us that Monet may have been bipolar. When he acquired the property at Giverny, the road running by it was unpaved. Coaches and wagons would pass, stirring up dirt. Every morning he would order his gardeners to dust the roses. Finally, he paid to have the road paved. At the time of his death Monet was the wealthiest artist in France. His success as an artist was largely because of a successful promoter who took some of his paintings to New York.Read more

  • France’s Finest
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    Day 4

    Vernon

    September 21, 2018 in France ⋅ ⛅ 59 °F

    In the afternoon we took a walking tour of the little town of Vernon. Our ship was docked just beside the bridge where Claude Monet’s son was killed in a car crash in 1966. The town is charming, and is located at the confluence of the Seine and the Eure Creek, which served as the ancient boundary separating the Duchy of Normandy and the Kingdom of France. As we passed the fourteenth century church, we saw that a funeral was in progress, so we had to wait to go inside for photographs. In the meantime, we went to a supermarket to buy batteries. Then we visited a patisserie for an eclair and a tartelette. Next door was a chocolaterie where we bought some truffles. Since the pastry shop did not offer coffee, we brought our goodies back to the Viking Rinda and enjoyed them onboard. Tonight’s dinner was a buffet, a sampling of the characteristic dishes of Normandy. There was a ton of cheese, a fabulous chicken dish, and apples aplenty.Read more

  • France’s Finest
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    Day 5

    Rouen

    September 22, 2018 in France ⋅ 🌧 59 °F

    When we were first married we saw three views of the Rouen Cathedral at the National Gallery in Washington. Then and there we fell in love with the work of Claude Monet. Today we visited that cathedral, along with the Parish Church of St. Maclou and the Church of St. Ouen. I was able to pay photographic homage to Monet by attempting to duplicate his beautiful images on this rainy Saturday. I had not realized before that the heart of Richard the Lionhearted is entombed here, along with the remains of Rollo, the first Viking Duke of Normandy. We also went to the place where Joan of Arc was tried, then to the church which has been built over the site of her execution. This modern structure, built in 1979, incorporates stained glass windows salvaged from churches of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that were destroyed in World War II. A visit to Rouen’s Museum of Fine Arts capped off a wonderful afternoon. We saw one of Monet’s views of the Rouen Cathedral right here in Rouen. There was also a wonderful painting by Pisarro of the Pont Boïldieu, the bridge by which the Viking Rinda is docked. At night there was a sound and laser light show, using the facade of the cathedral as a screen. One presentation gave the history of the Viking invasion of Normandy, and another gave the story of William the Conqueror.Read more

  • France’s Finest
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    Day 6

    Omaha Beach

    September 23, 2018 in France ⋅ 🌧 61 °F

    The beaches where the Allies landed on June 6, 1944 occupy sacred ground. One can only imagine the feelings of the nineteen and twenty year old men who jumped from the landing craft on that summer morning. Most expected to die on those beaches. In the first wave most did. Some did not even make it out of the landing craft. The weather today was raw—30 mph gusts blowing sand into your eyes. The temperature is a chilly, wet and windy fifty-five degrees. Yet the rain and wind today made for conditions similar to those experienced by the GI’s in 1944. Over nine thousand young Americans lie sleeping on the cliff they captured from Germans of the same age in 1944. Yet these patriots sleep in American soil. The French government gave these 170 acres to the United States in 1965 to say “thank you” for the permanent sacrifice of these young men and the four young women nurses who still lie here. They gave their lives because they believed that people should live in freedom rather than tyranny. Being here reminds me again of the cost of freedom. It also reminds me that America cannot be great unless she is good. I hope she still is.Read more

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