Day 17 (Friday) Le Havre, France

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Bonne jour from Le Harve France, where the time is an hour earlier than when you went to sleep last night. But we are comparatively young and can adjust quickly.

Speaking of young, Happy (real) Birthday to Janet. We celebrated it on the ship a week ago but today is her real birthday. We did that because today is the last full day on the ship and we had a lot of things to get done today.

Thanks to Ray and Mary Gillespie (one of our dinner-mates) who had excess Internet Minutes and made them available to us. When they get back home they can look at the blog and read about the remainder of our trip. Maybe someday we will run across them on another cruise – they are really nice people.

This morning was an early start with us needing to be in the theater at 7:15 (did I mention that was 6:15 compared to when we went to sleep?). We got on the bus fairly promptly and were off to Rouen. Many people on the ship took the Paris tours (with 3 hour bus rides each way) or the Normandy beachhead tours (2.5 hour bus ride each way), but we did not want to have a full day tour the last day. All those folks will get back so late today that they needed to be pretty much packed last night. Conversely, we actually got back by 1:30 this afternoon and had lunch before doing a couple of loads of laundry – yes Sue, we will come with only a partial set of dirty clothes.

Anyway, back to the tour. Our guide (Sylvette) and driver (Antoine) took us quickly through the seaport of Le Harve and explained that it was almost completely destroyed in WW2 and rebuilt afterwards. Today it is the 2nd busiest seaport in France and that seems to be its main claim to fame. So we hurried out of town and headed for Rouen which took about 75 minutes. Along the way, our guide recounted much of the Middle Ages French history with all the changes of king so-and-so of England or France alternately gaining control of the Normandy region of France. It was pretty confusing unless you already knew the history, and then you probably did not need the explanation.

We saw a couple of main things in Rouen – the Cathedral de Notre Dame, and the commemorative center for Joan of Arc. Our guide first led us up and down the narrow town cobblestone streets seeing many interesting houses and shops. For a long time, the owners would build a first floor, and then build a slightly wider second floor, and a still wider third floor. In some cases the houses almost touched at their roofs but you could walk between them on the ground. However, a bad fire wiped out much of Rouen in 1523 and the king proclaimed that afterwards, houses could not be any wider at the top than at the bottom. Now if you find a house which leans out beyond its lower levels, you know it was built before 1523.

Back in the Middle Ages the rich/affluent could be buried in the churchyard, but the ordinary people were buried and then dug up 5 years later to make a place for new people. The bones were built into the walls of a cloister and we visited one of these. Apparently they also placed a black cat into the walls to keep the devil away form the poor souls who had been unearthed – kind of hard on the cat though.

Then we visited the cathedral (Father Mike has probably been wondering if we would ever get to a Catholic Church or if we had filled our quota last Fall). During or shortly before WW2 they took out many of the stained glass windows and buried them away to protect them. But during the war there was still damage to the cathedral and not all the windows got back into their appropriate place. Now there is a mixture of some plain glass and other stained glass. They are still making repairs from the war. Some of the statues are covered with net because they do not know how to clean them without destroying them because the stone they used is so soft. We also saw the tomb of Richard the Lionhearted (or at least the tomb of his heart). If we understood the story correctly, he is actually spread over many tombs in various locations, and they have his heart here in Rouen.

After visiting the cathedral, we walked through the streets past many shops and cafes, eventually arriving at the monument to Joan of Arc. Unfortunately it does not open until 2:00 PM and we were there at 11:00. But we saw it from the outside. We did get to see the spot where she was burned to death. We got to spend some free time in the shops (including the farmer’s market) before the bus collected us and drove us back to the ship. David did buy a couple of freshly baked French Croissants as a snack (using his impeccable French language skills). On the drive back, the guide gave us a short history of the life of Claude Monet and pointed the local spots associated with him.

This afternoon we cleaned clothes and then worked on getting everything packed in the suitcases again. Now that sounds like a simple task, but the checked-bags have to be out in the hall (neither weighing more than 50 pounds) by 10:00 this evening. So we also had to figure which other items we will need tomorrow and make sure those will fit in the carry-on bags. Well, tomorrow will tell whether everything that is remaining will actually fit in the allocated space, but the big bags have been tagged and placed in the hall (effectively gone until we disembark).

But we enjoyed a nice final dinner (sorry Ray and Mary were still in the bus coming back from Paris). We ate a last meal with Gary and Pat, plus two others who they assigned to our table. The dining room was very empty with lots of people not back yet. Janet had the All-American Meatloaf and David had the KC Strip Steak. For dessert on the last night, Princess Cruises traditionally has the “Parade of Baked Alaska”, and we each had a slice. We said goodbye to everyone and went to the Photo Gallery to pick out some picture. Then it was off to the theater for a final variety show. It is very difficult to get onto the internet for our final posting before we land tomorrow morning – apparently everyone are using up their remaining minutes before we dock in England.

However, all the batteries are charged – laptop battery, camera batteries, cell phone battery, palm pilot, etc – before we leave the ship. We expect to be able to recharge elsewhere along the way, but at least we will start fully charged. We do get an extra hour’s sleep tonight (going back to UK time), but we will still have an early call tomorrow morning. We are supposed to be fed and in our waiting area by 7:00 tomorrow morning, where they will then call us for disembarking.

DO NOT THINK THIS IS THE END OF THE STORY – WE WILL JUST BE CHANGING FROM SHIP MODE TO SHORE MODE – SO KEEP VIEWING FOR MORE ADVENTURES.

Au Revoir from France.

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Photos

Cathedral Notre Dame de Rouen
Cathedral in Rouen France

Statues to be Repaired
Cathedral in Rouen France

Tomb of Richard the Lion Hearted
Rouen France

Stained Glass Window
Cathedral de Notre Dame de Rouen, France

Magnificant Pipe Organ
Cathedral in Rouen France

McDonald's in pre-1523 building
Mansard Style Architecture - Rouen France

Gary & Pat
Our other regular dinner partners

Ronald & Adrian
Waiter and Server at dinners