Thursday, September 26, 2013

The final few days

Lyon La Foret is touted as one of the prettiest villages in France. No argument from me.

Bakery treats for breakfast (mais oui!) in the main square.




Dogs are welcome everywhere - even at the bakery!




















Beautiful, tranquil, sleepy little village, right?
Well, not quite. I tried really hard to crop the traffic out, but there was a lot!




Rouen. Infamous as the place where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. There was a street named after her, a small statue, and a plaque, in a tiny, ill-kempt garden, but other than that, they were pretty low- key about it.










I guess it's not an easy concept to market. What are they gonna do? Sell little figurines with maybe a tea light candle underneath?


Of course there is the requisite gothic cathedral.










And some great lunch options. We chose to have a picnic across the street from the spendy restaurants.





The town of Le Nourbourg has an open market one morning a week. It was huge! It covered several city blocks, and you name it, and it was on display.































We had another nice picnic lunch in a little park by this house.





Les Andelys, Chateau Galliard.
Because we hadn't done enough hills and steps lately, we decided to climb up to see this ruin. It was quite a work-out, but the view of the Seine valley from the top was well worth it.































Val de Reuil.
We had dinner reservations for our last night in France in the next village over from Connelles, but we couldn't hold out that long. We went or a drive in search of lunch, and found ourselves in a little hole-in-the-wall pizza joint in a strip mall in Val de Reuil, with our local buddies.







Strangest pizza ever! Scallops, mussels, olives, & squid bits. Yes, really!




Our last dinner at Jules & Jim's looked like a better bet.







And just like that *snaps fingers* our once in a lifetime trip is over.

Sigh!

We had a blast, and now we have a thousand new memories in the friendship bank.

Thank you, Debbie & Cheryl. We'll always have Paris!

Friday, September 13, 2013

Monet's Garden

Claude Monet was born in Paris, but lived for many years...








...and died...




...in the pretty village of Giverny.








































His home and garden alone are worth the trip to Normandy.




Dahlias! Just like Grandad's garden.















And sunflowers, another favorite.




As well as some strange things I've never seen before.




This is the fantasy. His famous painting, The Waterlily Pond.




And this is the reality. Tourists jostling for position on the bridge.




I waited ages to get a shot of an almost empty bridge, then I messed it up by cutting off the waterlily pond. Grrrr!




I don't like this one, either. The edges are too distracting.




Crap! More tourists! Oh wait, we know these ones :-)




Such a beautiful place. For me, a definite highlight of our trip.












Side note:
I'm taking an on-line photography course. The first assignment was to get closer, fill the frame, and decide what your photo's story is.
This was my homework submission.




Was I close enough? Probably not, or I would've noticed the tiny green bug before I uploaded the image.
Does it tell a story? No, not really, it's just a pretty flower.
My instructor's critique said that a) I wasn't close enough, and b) it should have been approached from a different angle, as this straight-on shot is too confrontational. Harrumph.
Whatev. It doesn't matter to me whether she likes it or not, because to me it says "Hey, remember that amazing day when you strolled around Monet's garden?"