ALL I NEED IS MY PASSPORT

August 1, 2025

It is a lovely country drive from Rouen to Giverny with some sightseeing along the way.

Chateau Gaillard

Chateau Gaillard

Château Gaillard is a medieval castle ruin overlooking the River Seine above the commune of Les Andelys. Construction began in 1196 under the auspices of Richard the Lionheart, who was simultaneously King of England and feudal Duke of Normandy. It took a mere two years to build.

In his final years, the castle became Richard’s favourite residence, and writs and charters were written at Château Gaillard, bearing “apud Bellum Castrum de Rupe” (at the Fair Castle of the Rock). Richard did not enjoy the benefits of the castle for long, however, as he died in Limousin on April 6, 1199, from an infected arrow wound.

After Richard’s death, King John of England failed to effectively defend Normandy against the ongoing campaigns of King Philip II of France between 1202 and 1204.

The Seine and white chalk cliffs near the Chateau Gilliard

Statue of Liberty by Dali

Statue of Liberty by Dali

Located at the Vascoeuil Castle, a modern art sculpture museum, Salvador Dali’s statue of liberty with not one but two flames sits within view of the road.

Chateau Vascoeuil with a 17th-century dovecote to the left.

The fence of Vascoeuil Castle

I was intrigued by the stone used to build the walls in the area of Vascoeuil Castle. It is flint, which can be found as nodules within the upper part of clay formations and is formed of pure silica, better known as quartz. The outside is dull, but once split, the inside is lovely and glossy.

July 31, 2025

Rouen is absolutely magical.

Rouen Cathedral

One of the more popular sites in Rouen is the Rouen Cathedral.

The Cathedral is renowned for its three towers, each in a distinct architectural style. The cathedral, built and rebuilt over more than eight hundred years, features elements ranging from Early Gothic to late Flamboyant and Renaissance architecture.

It is from this angle that Claude Monet painted more than thirty images of the Cathedral between 1892 and 1893.

The West front is framed by two tall towers: Tour St. Romain to the left and Tour de Beurre to the right. Between these is seen the spire of the Lantern Tower, which rises from the crossing of the transept.

The Lantern Tower

The lantern tower is topped by a cast iron spire, the highest in France. Destroyed by lightning in 1822, it was architect Jean-Antoine Alavoine who proposed using cast iron, a very modern material for the time, as it would be less combustible than wood and lighter than stone.

The Cathedral has been undergoing renovations since 2016. That is the reason for the white protective covering.

The space between the two towers is covered with arcades adorned with lacy Flamboyant Gothic stonework and topped by open canopies and pierced gables.

The tympanum is decorated with statues forming a ‘Tree of Jesse’, the Family Tree of Jesus. The Calvinists heavily damaged it during the Wars of Religion. Some statues were decapitated during the French Revolution.

This is the Porte Saint-Étienne dedicated to St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr. The tympanum is comprised of two registers. The lower register depicts the stoning of St. Stephen in the presence of Saul, and the upper register shows Christ in majesty.

I took this specifically because I was fascinated with the construction of the brown and white marble above the tympanum.  In researching, I found that most of the historical photos do not include this element. And I have been left at a loss as to how it was actually constructed.

The rose window is found above the central portal and is partly concealed by the great gable. It was created at the end of the 14th century by the cathedral’s master architect, Jean Périer. The pattern of the rose window represents flames, which directly refers to the Flamboyant Gothic style.

There are a myriad of gargoyles on the Cathedral. These two caught my eye. It is unusual to see gargoyles with humans at their chests, and yet I have no idea why these two do.

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The inside of the cathedral is nowhere near as flamboyant.

The Nave

The nave is covered with four-part rib vaults, supported by colonettes that reach down the walls to the massive pillars on the ground floor.

The ceiling

These stunning 15th-century stairs, called the booksellers’ stairs, lead to the library. In 1562, during the start of the Wars of Religion, the library was ransacked by Calvinists.

As was the tradition of the time, after he died in 1199, King Richard I of England (Richard the Lionheart) was divided up. As a result, the heart of King Richard the Lionheart lies in Rouen Cathedral.

Damage Done. Over the Years:

In the late 16th century, the cathedral was severely damaged during the French Wars of Religion: in 1562, the Calvinists attacked the furniture, tombs, stained-glass windows, and statuary. The cathedral was struck by lightning in 1625 and 1642, then damaged by a hurricane in 1683.

In 1796, during the French Revolution, the new revolutionary government nationalized the cathedral and temporarily converted it into a Temple of Reason. Some of the furniture and sculpture were sold, and the chapel railings were melted down to make cannons.

In the weeks before D-Day in Normandy, the cathedral was hit twice by Allied bombs. In April 1944, seven bombs dropped by the British Royal Air Force struck the building, narrowly missing a key pillar of the lantern tower, and damaging much of the south aisle and destroying two windows. In June 1944, a few days before D-Day, bombs dropped by the U.S. Army Air Force set fire to the Saint-Romain tower. The bells melted, leaving molten remains on the floor.

To do the Cathedral justice, one needs many, many hours, which sadly, I did not have.

July 2025

Bayeux Cathedral

With its combination of Norman and Romanesque architecture, as well as Gothic spires, the Cathedral dominates the skyline of Bayeux. 

The site is an ancient one and was once occupied by Roman sanctuaries. The present cathedral was consecrated on July 15, 1077, in the presence of William, Duke of Normandy.

Following serious damage to the cathedral in the 12th century, it was rebuilt in the Gothic style, most notably in the crossing tower and transepts.

Despite the crossing tower having been started in the 15th century, it was not completed until the 19th century.

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The Cathedral is rich in Grotesques and Gargoyles

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The Crypt

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The town boasts of its walking tour where you follow these trees, taken from the Bayeux Tapestry. Sadly, it is poorly mapped and has no explanations, despite what the tourism office says.

This street radiates from the cathedral. The stone dwellings date from the 13th and 14th centuries.

Just some of the Medieval architecture of the town.

The development of bobbin lace making in Bayeux is due to the arrival of a few nuns at the end of the 17th century.  The city had a lace-making training center, originally intended to provide employment for poor young girls, and it ran from the 17th century until 1905. The Maison Lef’bure, which was run from 1890 to 1915 in the above building, was one of the finest lace-making establishments in Bayeux.

Founded in 1646, the Bayeux community of Benedictine nuns was installed outside the city at the foot of the ramparts. At the time of the Revolution, the nuns were thrown out of their convent. In 1812, their former convent was transformed into a porcelain factory that by 1870 employed 140 people. All traces of porcelain manufacturing have disappeared, but the craftsmanship can still be found in the street signs of Bayeux.

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Place Charles de Gaulle

This park commemorates the role Bayeux played during the liberation of France in World War II. On the 14th of June 1944, just days after D-Day, de Gaulle arrived from London and delivered his first major speech re-establishing republican law on the national soil. He set up his headquarters in Bayeux, which became the administrative capital of France. De Gaulle is the center of the fountain that stands in the middle of the park.

In our Normandy, glorious and mutilated, Bayeux and its surroundings witnessed one of the greatest events in History. We testify that they were worthy of it. It was here that, four years after the initial disaster for France and the Allies, the final victory for the Allies and France began.

This water wheel, originally constructed for milling grain, can be found along the banks of the Aure River.

July 29, 2025

The Bayeux Tapestry

Making headquarters in the small town of Bayeux for 3 nights is a lovely thing to do.  It is a quaint town, albeit filled with tourists.  Some to see the beaches of Normandy and some to see the Bayeux Tapestry.

Photos are not allowed in the gallery of the tapestry, so I have borrowed these photos from Wikipedia.

The tapestry is actually an embroidered cloth nearly 230 feet long and 20 inches high. It depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, led by William, Duke of Normandy, who challenged Harold II, King of England, and culminated in the Battle of Hastings. It is thought to date to the 11th century, within a few years of the battle. Now widely accepted to have been made in England, perhaps as a gift for William, it tells the story from the point of view of the conquering Normans and has been preserved in Normandy for centuries.

The gallery in Bayeux. Photo from NYT.

The big news is that with the advent of the expansion of the museum, the tapestry will return to London after 900 years and remain there for eleven months starting September of 2026. It will be packed up on September 1st, so my timing was perfect.

Bishop Odo

According to the British Museum, it was likely commissioned by William’s half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux.

This is my favorite panel. It was on this site that William may have forced Harold Godwinson to take an oath of support to him. Harold is swearing on all that is holy to the Normans (two altars)  that he will remain loyal to William. He then heads back to England to break his oath. – This scene is said to have taken place in the Bayeux Chapel

Coronation of Harold, seemingly by Archbishop Stigand

Haley’s comet

When William of Normandy was assembling a fleet to cross the Channel, to finagle his way into the succession crisis that was brewing in England, Haley’s comet raced through the sky. Sky viewers throughout Europe reported it as a bad omen for England. William took heart from the omen and launched his invasion.

A battle scene. It is here that the marginalia becomes so interesting. Notice the dead and decapitated bodies on the bottom.

The tapestry was occasionally used to decorate the cathedral in Bayeux. It was threatened during the French Revolution in the 18th century,  in one case, when revolutionaries sought to use it to cover ammunition wagons. Later, it was briefly exhibited in Paris by Napoleon in 1803, before being moved back to Bayeux.

As I left the museum, I spotted this worn but excellent piece of graffiti of a Norman painting the tapestry with spray paint.

The Tapestry Museum is in the former Grand Séminaire de Bayeux, a training center for diocesan priests from the late 17^th century until 1969. The first stone for the seminary was laid in 1693.

The tapestry has been displayed in the building since 1983.

July 28, 2025

Looking back at the memorial with the reflecting pool in front

Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves by Donald De Lue

The pebbles at the base of the statue are all from Omaha Beach. There was a wreath ceremony as we stood there.

Map of the landings on the Normandy beaches

Map of the military operations in Western Europe

Looking over the reflecting pool to the chapel and the graves

The Ceiling in the chapel

The mosaic is by Leon Kroll. Completed in 1953, it comprises 500,000 tiles and tells a full round story “of war and peace.” One side depicts Columbia (Goddess of Liberty) allegorically representing America blessing “her rifle-bearing son before he departs to fight overseas. Above him, a warship and a bomber push through sea and air toward land on the opposite side of the dome. There, a red-capped Marianne figure, personifying France, bestows a laurel wreath upon the same young man. His now lifeless body leans against her as she cradles his head in her lap. Above them, the return of peace is illustrated with an angel, a dove, and a homeward-bound troop ship.”

On June 19, 2018, Julius H. O. Pieper, whose bones were identified with DNA, was laid to rest next to his twin brother, Ludwig J. W. Pieper, and became the 9,388th servicemember buried at the Normandy American Cemetery.
The cemetery contains the graves of 45 pairs of brothers (30 of whom are buried side by side), a father and his son, an uncle and his nephew, two pairs of cousins, three generals, four chaplains, four civilians, four women, 147 African Americans, and 20 Native Americans.

These burials are marked by white Lasa marble headstones, 9,238 of which feature Latin crosses (for Protestants and Catholics), and 151 of which feature the Star of David (for Jews). Since these were the only three religions recognized at the time by the United States Army, no other type of markers are present

The Cemetery is divided into ten plots. It forms a Latin cross, with the chapel at its center.

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The Cemetery looks over Omaha Beach

The cemetery is on French soil, so should anything happen, it will be French police that respond.  However, the cemetery has perpetuity and sits here tax-free.  It is run by the American Battle Monuments Commission, but the guards and groundskeepers are all French citizens.

The care taken to maintain the stone markers is heartwarming.

At the very front of the cemetery is this time capsule. It contains news reports of the June 6, 1944, Normandy landings. In the center of the slab is a bronze plaque engraved with the following inscription: “In memory of General Dwight D. Eisenhower and the forces under his command. This sealed capsule containing news reports of the June 6, 1944, Normandy landings is placed here by the newsmen who were there, June 6, 1969.”