Blogs from Upper Normandy, France, Europe

Today the cruise ship docks in Le Havre Paris. From Le Havre Renata and I wanted to tour Normandy to see the D-day beach sites. However, those Princess tours were all booked so we decided to go on tour to Monet House and the city of Rouen instead. Monet House Claude Monet’s home is located in Giverny, France. The house has a beautiful garden with a lily pond that could have been the inspiration for his famous “Water Lilies” paintings. Rouen After touring Monet’s House, we headed over to Rouen after a delicious lunch. Rouen is a city on the river Seine in northern France and is Normandy’s vibrant, historical and cultural capital, famous for its cathedral and museums. Places we visited in Rouen include: 1. La Couronne, founded in 1345, is the oldest inn in ... read more

I have no idea when I first heard about The Flight of the Earls. It is one of those historical events that you can't avoid hearing something about if you live in Ireland. Be it in a song or someone talking about Irish history in an educational setting, or a documentary or in the pub. When I started working in Donegal I became more aware of it. A flurry of commemoration about the event occurred during the 400th anniversary in 2007 including books, commemorative stamps and a sculpture installed at their departure point on the outskirts of Rathmullan on the shores of Lough Swilly. The Earls sailed off in a French ship with a retinue totalling 99 people in September 1607 intending to reach Spain. The weather initially and subsequently political events, meant they never got ... read more

Day 13 - On French Soil Considering how windy it was, the channel crossing wasn't too bad. We lost an hour crossing over to France so it was about 10pm when we got in. By the time we got to our accommodation and had a shower it was just after 11pm. We can vouch for the fact that the town of Dieppe doesn't have any restaurants open at that time. Dinner became our emergency ration, the equivalent of a tune and pasta pre-packaged meal. And to think, we're in France! Our accommodation was a little disappointing. WiFi didn't work, no milk for coffee, no communication in English, and no remote for the TV. Well to be fair, the remote was there but it got buried under Jeff's stuff and wasn't seen again until we were leaving. ... read more

Yesterday was the kind of day to make you forget about covid, the state of the world and all the horrid crazy stuff of real life. A gentle (i.e we got up late) start to the morning after a middle of the night bed collapse. (4 am I moved and the slats in the bed chose to withdraw themselves from their slots and woke me and Ash with the sounds of gunshots as I found myself closer to the floor than I really wanted to be! Ash heroically stepped in to mend it and we went back to sleep, a little more afraid of moving than we had been!) So later then planned we made our way across the huuuuge bridge to Ile de Re again to a near empty gorgeous sandy beach. We made carcassonne ... read more

Gisteren, na 360km van thuis, overnacht in Veules-les-Roses aan het begin van de Normandische kust. Grijs weer onderweg, en eens geïnstalleerd op de camping van waar we met wat moeite de zee konden zien, kregen we regen. Eindelijk regen, heel de nacht door. Onze weervrouwen zullen nu wel blij zijn. Dus geen verdere verkenning van dit dorp. De camping is wel volgens de corona regels ingericht. Met instructies hoe sanitair te gebruiken. Alcool dispensers aan elke ingang. Wij bleven dan maar in onze bubbel. We hebben alles bij. Deze morgen, geen regen meer en korte verplaatsing naar de camperplaats aan de haven van Saint-Valery-en-Caux, onder de hoge krijtkliffen. We staan hier wel als sardientjes naast mekaar. Maar we kijken uit op de zee, en hebben een buur uit Haacht. Dat scheelt. Als het nog wat meer ... read more