Today was probably the closest to "death march through France" that we'll get. John was careful to try to pace us throughout the trip and he has done a magnificent job at getting A LOT of sites and activities into our two weeks. We have had an amazing trip and we all held up pretty well until today...
Lets start with John - he sprained his ankle yesterday, apparently, I'm guessing at Utah Beach or at our last stop at the village cemetery. Last night it was bothering him but it really started hurting today. Thankfully the pharmacies are well marked and the handy Rick Steves language guide has body part names - that plus some gestures crossed the language divide in Rouen and John now has an ace bandage and cane (I was pretty proud of myself, I must say).
That meant that I got to drive for most of our trip today (we have been trading off on other days) .... You might think that this is not so terrible, but today's itinerary was Giverny, Chateau Galliard L'Engleses, and Rouen. The farthest point (Giverny) is about 200 Kilometers from Bayeux. Our trip started with a likely speeding ticket for me - John saw the flash go off on what must be a classic speed trap - the road goes from 130 Km/hr to 70 Km/hr within about 500 meters, stays there for 500 meters, and then jumps back up. I guess we'll see what happens there.... Then, we selected a "Departmental" road that we thought would go fairly quickly (you can drive 90 Km/hr outside the towns) and appeared to be more direct. Unfortunately, there are A LOT of towns (all with roundabouts) along the way - imagine driving from Harrisburg to Philadelphia on Route 322, or from Baltimore to Charlottesville on 29. And have I mentioned that rental cars in Europe are manual transmission (which I am capable of driving, but prefer not to as I have had a lingering ankle issue, likely from a cyst)? After the first 90 minutes I basically demanded that John find me a high speed road. I don't think it was a pretty sight from the back seat (the poor kiddos, neither was the Rouen Oddesey to be mentioned later).
The kids were great - they were pretty quiet in the back seat, watching the rainy countryside go by, trying to amuse themselves and us with jokes. Poor things - I had the grumpies and I was not laughing....
We managed to get to Giverny and it was sooooo worth it. The gardens are just beautiful, and I think the damp day made them even more pretty. My camera will not have done them justice (particularly because I'm not the most adept at using it). Alexa and I spent at least an hour taking photos of flowers before a total downpour started.
We had lunch in Giverny at the waterlily cafe (its name is essentially that, but in French). The waiter was great - he not only allowed us to grab hot dogs for the kids from the sister 'take out' attached to the restaurant, he actually took their plates of fries (which we had ordered from the restaurant so that we were getting something for them from there) to the take out to get the hot dogs. The hot dogs here, by the way, come in a baguette. Ben was soooo happy.
Their lunches must have looked quite appetizing because the mother and daughter who sat down next to us (coming in drenched, did I mention the rain?) asked for the same thing and the waiter said they couldn't have it - it was a special exception. Who says the French aren't nice?!?!
We ended up chatting with the mother and daughter (they asked us about the Monet house and garden - they were still debating whether to go in the rain) and it turned out they were from Denmark. The daughter was working for Ikea in Paris, so of course we had to have an Ikea love fest. In the end we gave them one of our umbrellas (they had none) and told them they really should go to the garden at least...
From Giverny it was off to the Chateau Galliard - the ruins of a castle built by King Richard the Lionhearted. Remember that the movie John managed to get me to watch was The Lion in Winter. It was a really cool castle (though we didn't go in it - recall that John has a sprained ankle and at that point I still had not managed to locate appropriate supplies) and it was amazing to look up and think that a KING (John reminds me it was really three kings) walked around in there 800 years ago. Its also quite apparent why he chose that spot to build upon - its on top of a hill that commands a spectacular view (and would therefore have been easy to defend). The drive up and back was interesting - hairpin turns and 15% grades on gravel road... poor John having to sit in the passenger seat with no control over my driving - I'm sure I would not have sat there too comfortably.
Finally, we headed to Rouen. For those that don't know, Rouen is famous as the site that Joan of Arc was burned at the stake as well as the site of the cathedral Monet painted. I knew it had sustained heavy damage during WWII, but I was still looking forward to seeing it, imagining a quaint town with half timber buildings, based on what I had seen on Rick Steves show.
Well, Rouen is the largest city in Normandy, so quaint is not really a good descriptor. And I probably should have read the part in Rick's book that notes that EVERYONE gets lost in Rouen (because we did). At a minimum, I probably would have had a better set of expectations had I read about just how much had been flattened (as in, none of the original Joan of Arc stuff still stands, some destroyed well before the war, the cathedral sustained damage and is in the midst of being restored, the half timber buildings were re-built, etc.). In the end, we had a reasonably nice time, saw what we came for, and were glad to put Rouen behind us (particularly the graffiti on the old Palace of Judgement that appalled both Ben and I).
We had promised Ben a trip back to Hippopatamus for dinner and we saw one on our way into Rouen, so we managed (with a fair bit of effort) to find our way back to it and ate dinner there before heading back to Bayeux.
In the end, we saw some really great sites today, and we all managed to laugh and have fun on the ride home (for those who ever saw the Rugrats, we are big fans of the "Reptar on Ice" episode and had a little sing a long at one point... silly, but fun).
PS - The best news of the day is probably that the New Jersey bicyclists have moved out of the hotel (at least for the rest of our stay - they'll be back in 10 days to finish their trip, apparently)!!! Individually they were nice - they said hello and wanted to chat as we passed in the evening. As a group they were a nightmare - they moved in a pack and as such consumed all of the breakfast space at one time, spread their bikes through the driveway in the mornings, and even have taken about 4 parking spaces in the covered barn with their bike cases (because they did not put them all at the same spot). I really felt for the hotel staff because they always seemed to be running for something for one of them - usually around food (the hotel provides breakfast, but the bike group also made their own dinners in the garden and then had the person working the front desk running drinks out). In fairness to the biking group, I think the hotel is too small for them - it has 30 rooms and there were 35 bikers, so they were using over half of the rooms and the place is not set up to move that many people all at once.
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