Got a late start today. It was hard to get going. Picked up the car at the railroad station, but the clerk at the rental agency wasn't much help. She went off to lunch after we filled in the papers, and it took us an hour and a half to find the car! Things got funny when Jan went off to check the second floor of the parking garage, Terre and I had some breakfast bars and the rest of a small bottle of wine while we watched the luggage. We finally hit the road to Giverny at about 1:30 in the afternoon. The trip went well and Jan became a true French driver before too long (130 km/hr was standard!).
After a quick sandwich in the town of Giverny, we went to the Monet house and garden. The garden was wonderful, and it wasn't hard to get magnificent photos, except you have delete other photographers from the photos!
| Reflections on the water | |
| The main entrance is carpeted with nasturtiums. | |
| Flowers grow right up to the windows of the main house | |
| My two flower lovers were in second heaven. | |
After we left the garden we knew it would be too late to get to Bayeux, so we decided to drive as far as we could get comfortably. Lisieux turned out to be the ideal spot to stay. We found a Campanile Hotel (one of a chain throughout France) and had a very nice dinner at the hotel. At the next table there was a French couple from the outskirts of Paris and their dog, Graine. As was always the case when we met people from France, they wanted to know if we were afraid to travel and how the events of September 11 affected us. Lisieux was the home of Sainte-Thérèse of Lisieux. The basilica dedicated to her memory is a place of pilgrimage even for popes.
Tomorrow it's the Beaches of Normandy .