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June 10, 2006
Day 1: Paris to Les Andelys
Now that my computer is fixed and I'm back in action, I want to show some pictures from our trip to France last month. It was an amazing, beautiful, and rejuvenating ten-day trip. But since I'm still in the midst of thesis writing, I'm going to narrate it in small bits rather than tackle it all at once.
This map shows an overview of our trip. The scientific conference I was attending was in St. Malo on the Atlantic coast in the Brittany region of Northwest France. We were flying in a week early to travel before heading to the conference. But what to see during that week? I'd never been to France before and our choices seemed limitless. We finally decided that since we were headed to Brittany and didn't know if we'd ever get a chance to see the region again, we wouldn't spend any time in Paris but instead head straight out and explore Normandy and the eastern part of Brittany.
We landed in Paris around noon on May 3, rented a car, and set out for Les Andelys, a small town along the Seine near Normady's eastern border. On a bluff overlooking the Seine and the town are the ruins of a fortress, Château-Gaillard, built by King Richard the Lionheart in 1196 to protect his Norman lands.
The château is in the foreground with the Seine behind and Les Andelys off to the right. Since the fortress was not on the highest point (the hill where we took the picture is higher), there were massive moats and walls built around it to protect it from attack from above. In the far background you can see white cliffs along the river banks -- the same type of rock formation as in the south of England.
Not much is left of the massive center donjon (keep).
The main purpose of the fortress was to control passage along the Seine and bar the King of France's way to the city of Rouen further downstream. Here's a nice look down to the river from the fortress.
A view from the other side of the fortress looks across to the rolling fields above the town. One of the things that struck me as we clambered around the château is how freely you can clamber around historic sites in France. If this were in the States, everything would be roped off and you'd have to stay on a narrow, restricted path -- no climbing, no touching. All the better to preserve things for the next generation, I suppose. But I must admit I really enjoyed the freedom to explore.
We worked up a real appetite and headed back into town for our first dinner in France -- a lovely and leisurely dinner. As we were strolling along, we happened to spy this pet grooming store:
Yes, that's Scooby-Doo. I love how the name is spelled in phonetic French: Scoubidou!
Posted by rigd0003 at June 10, 2006 11:23 PM | Travel