Goodbye relaxed casual orderly country feel of Epernay and hello hustle bustle noise and chaos of Rouen. Rouen, another town on the Seine, was a had to do; mainly for my benefit as another of my grandmothers uncles is buried in the war cemetery there. Finding the cemetery kept us busy and frustrated; we tried late arvo without a map (massive test for my driving and Manda's patience in afternoon rush hour) and early morning with a map (but it still took us a while)! The cemetery, considering it's large size, was immaculately manicured, I felt it a real mark of respect to the diggers buried there. Thankfully there were 4 or 5 rather thick consecutive alphanumeric volumes with all the diggers names and home town which also provided a code as to where in the cemetery one could find them. Invaluable! It would have taken hours to find without this. Interesting, the cemetery is open between set hours unlike Gallipoli which is open all the time so check opening hours before tuning up!
Camped in just outside Rouen but it was dodgy and freezing cold; I gave up on sleep at 5am when the car thermometer read -1 degrees. Bizarrely enough Manda slept on through seemingly happy enough so I managed to get a long walk in and do some exploring of the local village.
Once my princess awoke from her slumber (7am) we headed back to Rouen (5 min drive) and saw the site where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in the 1400's and the rather large, impressive and ornate Rouen cathedral. From here went to the cemetery and then left Rouen as quick as possible. Don't think we're the big city type!
Our prospects and spirits, having left Rouen finally having done what we went there for, were revived almost instantly as we headed south to Giverney, home to Claude Monet and his famous gardens. His home and more so the gardens were beautiful and certainly inspirational; the water gardens, featured in so many of his works, were simply stunning. I can only imagine the staff required to keep everything here so perfect. Favorite plant here was perhaps 10 apple trees grown to a meter tall to create a boxed hedge look! Incredible!
We then headed deeper into Normandy and did the 5 D-Day beaches before stopping in a little medieval village named Honfleur for the night. It to was pretty as a picture and had amazing fresh seafood (we couldn't have asked for more)!
Also, interestingly, on our trip to Honfleur we came across quite possibly 1000+ French police?!? Manda and I had all sorts of theories as to what they were all doing (searching cars, blocking road entries, big dogs, swat looking vehicles, wearing camo, hiding in bushes, on bikes, in helicopters; the district was swarming with them!) - murder/man hunt seemed most exciting and therefore appealing!!! Alas it was to keep a little seaside village next to Honfleur tight as a fish's posterior for the bloody G8 summit?!? No murderer? No terrorist? No drug bust? No secret mission?! What a let down. The bright side is that we haven't seen 1 police officer anywhere otherwise; clearly they are all at the G8!!!
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