July 20- Scott and Julie’s Anniversary in Giverny and Bayeux

There’s a life-size statue of a World War I soldier in the lobby of the hotel from last night because of this area’s World War I battles. He looks miserable and is in full packs, slogging through the trenches. Oddly enough, he’s not as creepy as the mannequin in the pink dress that stood by the door at our hotel in Munster. The hotel from last night was a great hotel though. Julie and the girls fell asleep watching the first Harry Potter on TV in French. Julie was explaining the story as they watched. Meanwhile, Scott was updating the blog. We were a week behind with posting.

We wanted to get an early start this morning so we skipped hotel breakfast and got on the road with a couple of croissants from the store next door.

Believe it or not, Anna and Emma have both studied about Claude Monet in their art classes and they’ve each done their own versions of his studies of the Japanese bridge in his gardens at Giverny. When we realized how close we would be passing to his gardens, and how much that would mean to the girls, we knew we had to find the time to stop. The girls have been greatly anticipating this visit.

Monet had this large, amazing garden behind his house in the little town of Giverny, between Paris and Rouen. It’s such a small town, that it wasn’t even on the second map that we bought to replace the AAA maps. We stopped in the visitors center in Les Andelys and since Julie had been doing all of the asking up until now, she thought it was Scott’s turn to try his foreign language skills. Scott thought he’d try the “Dov’è…” trick that had worked so well in Italy and watch the hands of the people that answered to see where they pointed. He said, “Où est Giverny?” The woman at the help desk said, “Giverny?” and smiled and said something rapidly in French without using her hands at all. Scott bowed his head and said, “I’m sorry. Parlez-vous anglais ?” She said, “Yes, I do. But you asked me in French, so I replied in French.” Scott just said, “Yes, I know. I’m trying hard.”

Giverny is a little ivy covered town. The garden may be as big as rest of the town. We strolled through the first half of the garden with its many different kinds of flowers and it’s long maze like rows. There were many people there (though we beat most of the bus tours in) and yet it was still possible to find a quiet spot. The better part of the garden was the water side, where the water lilies grow that Monet loved to paint. The large pond is surrounded by weeping willows and large bamboo stalks, partly because of the way that they allow the light to filter through their leaves in interesting ways. This part of the garden is also where the bridge is that the girls have studied.

Ever since Anna found out that we were going to Monet’s garden, she’s been asking if she could sit and draw there like he did. So we made sure we had some paper and pens in the bag that went in with us. The girls found a quiet bench overlooking the pond, with the bridge in view, and began their work. Anna’s creation is an impressionists look at the garden’s play of light, at least as much as the media of Crayola markers will allow. In addition to lily pads, Emma added many details that the realist school would like, include her and Mommy on the bench by the pond and the guy on the boat in the middle who was cleaning out the weeds. When they stood to show us their creations, the people on the bench next to us applauded them too.

Claude Monet’s house is overlooking the gardens. He had a large collection of Japanese illustrations that cover just about every wall in the house. There are also many photographs of him and his friends from around the house and throughout Normandy. He seemed to prefer to do each room in a certain color. For example, the kitchen, was all in blue, which looked fine, but the dining room was yellow. Really, really yellow.

The girls each got a Monet “coloring book” which is almost more of a sketch book. They’ll enjoy showing their art teacher what they’ve seen. Julie found a print of the bridge that she liked, but was afraid to get it. Scott made her, as an anniversary present, since she gave him the Waterloo shirt yesterday.

After leaving Giverny, we drove on through Normandy, grabbing a picnic lunch at a rest stop along the way.

We arrived in Bayeux in the late afternoon, where Scott wanted to see the Bayeux
Tapestry. The tapestry itself is almost a thousand years old and it tells the story of the invasion of England and the Battle of Hastings in 1066. It’s almost like a 70 meter long comic strip that was created out of embroidery to educate the masses about William the Conqueror’s legitimacy. As you view the tapestry itself, you listen to an audio description (available in many languages) that walks you through scene by scene, since they are laid out in chronological order. The only problem with this description was that it seemed to move a bit quickly through some of the scenes and didn’t give you a chance to soak all of the details in, but the brevity was probably necessary to move that number of people through to see it. We bought a book in the gift shop, of course, to help us absorb more of it. Scott was fascinated by the tapestry. It’s not just an important bit of history itself, but an important way of telling history and an important step in the recording of history. It’s a primary source with an astounding amount of information and many levels to approach it on.

An interesting museum exhibit shows dioramas and full sized figures that bring to life the time of the conquest and what followed. A brief film was also shown, and we were able to wait for the English language showing of it.

Since it is Scott and Julie’s anniversary, we had to do something romantic for dinner tonight. We had cheesburgers on the floor of a Laundromat as our clothes went through the spin cycles. Laundry is an important chore, but like posting on the Internet, we haven’t been able to reliably find a place to do it when we need it. We’ve got to jump at the opportunities when we see it. We passed the Laundromat on the way to the Tapestry, so on the way back, we made sure we stopped and did what we needed to do. At first, we couldn’t figure out how the machines worked, but a kind women who spoke only French realized our problem. She rattled away how to put the money in, and this time we were able to watch her hands to see what she meant.

After dinner and laundry, we looked for a hotel. Many of the hotels in Bayeux seemed to be full, so we drove on to the next town, Port-en-Bessin. We’re glad that we did. The town itself is a fishing town on the English Channel. We got an interesting but modern hotel, with a room on the ground floor looking out over the fishing boats at their dock. After checking in, we walked down the docks to the pier. There’s an interesting old fortification along the beach (from about the 1880s apparently). There’s lots of fishy smells and seagulls calling and other nautical stuff happening, which Julie loves. The girls took a walk along the beach, which is quite literally made up of shells, and Anna carried a stack back to the hotel that was so large that she had to carry it with two hands. Goodness knows how they’ll get home with us. Omaha Beach, from D-Day, is apparently just around the corner from where we were strolling.