Today was a day for a field trip. We headed east towards Paris to the town of Les Andelys to visit the Chateau Gaillard. This massive 12th century fortress was built by Richard the Lionheart and it is built high on a hill overlooking a bend in the Seine River. It was destroyed in the 16th century but its ruins still dominate the area.
It was a bit of
a challenge but we finally found our way up the hill where we had good views of
the castle.
We then hiked up a small hill to get to the castle itself.
It looked like
a lot of the outer walls had been rebuilt.
The keep was
another story. It really had nothing in
it and had no roof.
Some of the outer areas of the original fortress are in pretty bad ruins.
But views from here were great…the countryside and the Seine River
and Les Andelys
from the fortress.
From there we headed down into Les Andelys for lunch. This lunch of toast and warm local cheese with honey was great.
We then decided to go to the nearby town of Vernon where we saw the small Tourelles Castle…
and the nearby Old Water Mill.
The Seine River with some swans.
The park had an art installation called “People” by Olivier Gerval.
Vernon is only a few miles from Giverny, home of Monet’s house and gardens, so we decided to drive over to see the gardens in the spring.
The drive was
short, the parking was limited but we found a spot, and we headed over to the
ticket office…only to encounter a massive, massive line to get tickets. So, we decided to skip the line and head back
to Rouen with plans to visit Giverny later.
A restaurant
near Monet’s gardens had a lovely garden of its own.
A country road on our drive.
Our drive back took us back through Vernon on another route. There we encountered a long stretch of street lined with trees pruned into squares…and they had grown together so it was a very, very long rectangle of trees that stretched for blocks.
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