Au revoir Paris! For now

Today our second of three tours this holiday started. We are doing a loop around northern France covering Honfleur, the Normandy beaches, and more. This is with a different tour company Back Roads Tours, we are a group of 18 mostly Aussies with a few New Zealanders, and Canadians. Two thirds of the group are females with Trace and I being at the very bottom end of the age spectrum. We are travelling in a smaller bus so it is easier for us to get into small towns and villages.

We hit the road out of Paris heading for our first stop Giverny. This is the village where Claude Monet lived and painted many of his famous works. He loved his garden so he spent about half his time gardening and the other half painting. He and the other impressionists were at the cutting edge of art in the late 1800s so he could afford to maintain a large house and garden.

We looked around and went through his house. All very impressive. He was friends with Renoir, Cezanne, and others from that time so his house was full of what would now be considered masterpieces and not just his own works.

We then made a brief stop at the nearby town of Vernon to admire their old bridge and fort guarding the river Seine. Back in the Middle Ages the river was a means of control, if you controlled the river you could control who comes and goes and also levy taxes.

This was followed by a stop to view Château Gaillard and the neighbouring village of Les Andelys. The castle dates back to the 1100s but changed hands a number of times over the centuries. Once again it overlooks the Seine so it was about controlling the river.

Much is said about the wars between Britain and France but they were very different times and countries back then. This castle was built by Richard the Lion Heart who was both King of England and Duke of Normandy - he inherited both of these titles and was actually born in France but the Dukedom meant he was supposed to bend the knee to the King of France. Didn’t happen which caused much tension and fighting.

Anyway the history is interesting but not something for this blog to cover in any detail.

Normandy today is very focussed on agriculture, including horses, dairy & beef products, apples, pears, and of course seafood along the coast. It was very green and lush.

We stopped in the village of Honfleur which is to be our home for the next two nights. Very pretty town and it looks very British, see the photos.

We have started to lose our run of luck with the weather. We have been about five weeks on the road with no rain to mention. Today it started to drizzle, didn’t slow us down at all.Baca lagi