Nice Monday 8th Sept

 Friday 7th June Paris to Honfleur 

Well in the bus, more like a Mercedes van, we hopped, there are 13 of us all together, 7 Kiwis, 3 Aussies and 3 Americans, they told us they are nice Americans, from Portland Oregan. And off to Giverny, it was a beautiful sunny day and the garden was glorious, divided into two we did the water lily ponds first, and managed to get some photos without posing Asians in them.

The boat from either side, showing the reflections in the water that Monet became so obsessed with in later life. The water Lillie’s are just beginning to bloom, so can only imagine how beautiful they will be in a few weeks time, but then again likely to be a whole lot more people!

Came across a beautiful poppy walking around the pond, a taste of things to come in the other garden

Our tour leader hadn’t been to Giverny in the spring so was not sure what to expect, but it was a beautiful garden with lots of poppies, alliums, foxgloves, phlox and some dahlias, roses, the odd iris too.

Look at the bees in this one, they were crazy for the pollen 

It’s so hard to convey the abundance of flowers without getting too many body parts in them,but hope these give you and idea, the pink and green house was his home,

It was truly lovely, we went through his house too, there were reproductions of his paintings everywhere but also lots of Japanese prints and lively colours on the walls.

The dining room, the yellow was a bit more acidic than it seems in the photos, a really joyful colour.

A bust and some photos of the esteemed man himself

Just some other views from inside the house, small rooms but plenty of them, they had bedrooms, where the mattresses had a peak in the middle as if someone was already in there under the covers, can’t imagine they would have been comfortable.

A close up of the house and just a few more poppies and alliums before we leave the garden

We walked around the village for a while, we were to have lunch there but felt like I had just had breakfast so had a Mulberry sorbet instead, very yummy. There were other lovely gardens around including some town gardens 

The topiary that looks like an umbrella had another one alongside it which was like the bottom of the plant, if they were put together they would form a ball.

Found this little robin there, cheeky little thing, reminded me of a fantail as it darted about.

Some other village shots follow.An antiques shop to start, then somebody’s window and somebody’s gate.

We then drove on towards the cost, stopped at a place called Vernon to view 12th century Tourelles castle and a sixteenth century water mill. We’re really interesting except had to step carefully through all the doggie doos in the grass to take photos. The castle was a stronghold on the banks of the Seine, who controlled the river had a lot of power.

Fairy tale stuff really

Then we drove on to a castle that was built for Richard the Lionheart Chateau Gillard, close to a little village of Les Bas Viviers in a very picturesque setting, again La Seine 

Pretty cool huh? So that would have been late 12th century, We are in Normandy now and of course then it was under the English crown, Richard spent more time in France and on the Crusades than in England. apparently when it was built, no expense was spared, a very commanding view it would have had both up and down river.

Honfleur 

My boudoir for two nights very charming.

The street of our hotel, also had the local wash house 

We walked down into the town for a short orientation tour, the main church of St Catherines was built by ship builders and is the largest wooden structure or maybe church in France you can see the ceiling is a bit like a ships hull Began in the 15th century.

Bit hard to get a full shot of the church, but above is it’s separate belfry as the church couldn’t support the weight of the bells

Here’s one of the entrance .

Honfleur is really pretty, has a really nice marina and lots of restaurants sited around it. We stayed and had fish and chips for tea, as you would and very nice too.

we had a wander around a few streets and got to see how a lot had been built - out seems out of anything that came to hand at the time

Stone, bricks, flint, anything they could get their hands on, the small house below could do with some repairs, but interesting to see the make up. A few of the houses have been faced with slate tiles to keep out the weather.

So we had really bad internet at the hotel, hence the delay in getting this out, when it was such a big day too. to use the internet we had to go into the salon, not too shabb, but even then it would cut out all the time.