Breakfast this morning in the hotel was a bit of an eye opener when I realised that what I had thought to be long summer dresses on some of the residents where actually dressing gowns over their pyjamas and night dresses, if only I had brought my dressing gown and pjs I could have joined in tomorrow morning.
I forgot to mention that when Edith and I arrived in Dieppe the local council had laid on a kite festival to welcome us and some of the entries would have challenged anything that Airbus manufacture. We decided not to take the direct route to Rouen and challenged google maps to find a route without motorways, as you can imagine it was quite off piste but there were no farmers shaking their fists at us and we saw some lovely Normandy villages en route. The girl directing us on google maps is a hoot, her French pronunciation is as diabolical as Shirley’s Welsh.
As you know, I do not like cities but as cities go Rouen is OK especially on a Monday morning when everything but the cafes is closed. It is a pleasure to wander around the medieval streets while it is quiet in fact even when it got busier at lunch time it was still pleasantly not crowded, I like it, it won’t take the place of Amsterdam but I still like it. I spent the day exploring, people watching, reading in cafes and I did the touristy thing at the Cathedral of Notre Dame which is what drew me to the city in the first place when I saw its spire and towers from the motorway on my last trip to the landing beaches. The cathedral is amazing, again I cannot believe the skills of our ancestors who could design and build such a huge structure over 800 years ago, it was also quite moving to visit the grave where Richard the Lionheart’s heart is buried.
Tomorrow we head south to the Périgord Vert via as few motorways as possible.
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