France: Part Two

Outside of Paris is a fantastically amazing farmhouse/ restaurant/ guesthouse, Le Doyenne.

With beautiful gardens of fruit and vegetables cared for with loving attention.

And open fields around.

The old barn, shown here during restoration,

was converted into a gorgeous restaurant space with views out to the gardens.

So many reminders in this beautiful place that you are in France,

vintage serving dishes,

a cabinet for drying herbs and flowers,

and a counter with French liqueurs, aperitif’s and digestifs.

And the most amazing dinner, the first course.

Soup,

so good.

Many more courses, all fantastic.

If you have planned in advance, you’ve booked a room so at the end of dinner you only have to climb the stairs and tumble into bed.

The view from the room.

then, breakfast.

Wow, I absolutely must figure out a way to go back. This place was magic.

Then Giverny! It was master impressionist painter extraordinaire, Claude Monet’s home and garden.

This had been on my bucket list since forever.

June in France, you’ll be there with lots of other people.

A bedroom in the house.

A view to the garden.

The amazing, glorious, beautiful, yellow dining room.

Yellow! Perfect.

Then a miracle of happenstance, everyone walked out and no one came in, it was just me, in Claude Monet’s dining room. Yellow walls and chairs, Japanese prints on the wall, and beautiful pottery on the blue and white checked tile fireplace.

A corner with some of Monet’s many Japanese prints and a photo of him in the very room that I was standing in.

A close up to show the pottery, prints, furniture, all the same.

I mean….

The same magic in the kitchen. Only me in the beautiful blue and white room.

Copper pots on one wall,

Blue and white tiles laid out to emphasize the different patterns.

It’s not a huge house, even trying to absorb every detail, you’re back out in the garden before too long.

Not a bad place to be.

A path under an arbor.

A look back at the house.

A path bordered with a bamboo fence.

The famous pond that inspired his water lily paintings.

I’d live here. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Another something I’d wanted to see since forever. In Normandy, not too far from Giverny, The Bayeux Tapestry.

At 20 inches high by about 225 feet in length, it is an amazing piece of embroidery.

It was commissioned soon after William the Conqueror’s 1066 conquest of Britain. For hundreds of years, it was part of the inventory of the Bayeux Cathedral where it was displayed once a year to commemorate the conquest. In 1803, the tapestry was displayed in Paris, then returned to Bayeux where it was stored at the city hall and exhibited once a year. By the 1840’s it was on permanent display.

The museum is in need of updating. It will be closed for two years starting September 1st. It was going to be hot in June, but July and August would be worse. If I wanted to see it, it would have to be June.

The museum.

I gasped when I first saw the tapestry.

At 20 inches high by about 225 feet in length, it is an amazing piece of embroidery.

It’s like a graphic novel. The entire history of how and why the Norman’s invaded Britain. All told with threads sewn onto a linen fabric.

Here Harold is preparing to leave England and go to Normandy to pledge loyalty to William.

They load their dogs and falcons for the trip across the English Channel.

It is so cool! The men with their skinny mustaches, their tunics pulled up so they won’t get too wet as they wade into the water, the man pulling hard against the rudder to steady the ship. This was made almost a thousand years ago and it is completely understandable.

I was trying to take pictures, every square inch is amazing, but I’m holding a listening device explaining all the details of what I’m looking at, all the while trying to juggle my phone and not drop the device and move along because the audio is already several scenes further down. It’s just not working.

This by the way is Harold, you can tell because he has a falcon.

About then, I’m told no photos allowed. I look around, I am the only one trying to take photos.

Ok, actually it was better because I could listen and follow along and spend my time looking and experiencing and enjoying my time seeing the Bayeux Tapestry and not try to take well composed photographs.

One other photo I managed before I was stopped.

If you’d like more, please click here. It’s a link to the entire tapestry with brief explanations.

The audio was excellent. If I didn’t have it I wouldn’t have understood what I was looking at. SO many details and little scenes I would have missed without it. I wish I could have stopped and started the audio, but alas, that was not possible. I understand, they need to move people through, otherwise it would be even more clogged with visitors.

I immediately fantasized about seeing it again. But in two months it would coming down for 2 years! Then, just after I was home, there was an article in the New York Times that said that the British Museum would be displaying the tapestry from September 2026 – July 2027.

so hmmmm……

Later, on the way back to Paris, a stop in Rouen to see their amazing cathedral.

It’s fascinating to read the history of this building. It was first built around 400, then for centuries, added to, enlarged and remodeled. Towers and side chapels were added, parts removed and rebuilt. Including the front, which was showing weakness at the end of the 1400’s and was reconstructed to what we see now.

Inside the amazing 15th century staircase to the library.

In the chapel of the Virgin, the 17th century alter.

Fires, wars, the revolution, lightening, bombing during WWII and time, have left their mark.

Rows of damaged sculptures.

The tomb with the heart of Richard the Lion Hearted. His heart is here, his entrails are at the chateau of Chalus and the rest of his body at Fontevraud Abbey [!]

The latin inscription roughly translates to ‘Here is Richard’s heart, the king of England, who died in the year 1199, the heart of a lion.’

Wow and wow again, what a place. Back in the middle ages, if you were a promoter for your city and wanted to bring thousands of pilgrims to visit, this cathedral would do it. They did an excellent job, it still works. People continue to come to see such an amazing place, walk through in awe, sit a while, stop by at a local cafe, maybe buy a token, a post card, a mug.

I said it before, it was hot and crowded, but it was France! A magnificent place! I would go and do it all again in a minute.

One last example of why to love France. Because of an early morning arrival at the airport and time before the plane departed, there was time for breakfast.

An airport breakfast! No cellophane wrapped, stale breakfast roll here. Instead, a beautiful, perfect, delicious mushroom omelet. Fantastic.

I cannot wait until my next visit to such a beautiful, interesting and magnificent place.