Rouen

We took a train through the French countryside to Rouen, city of churches and all things Catholic. Arriving at middday, we trundled into town and Robyn sat in the square suitcase-minding while I went to hunt for a hostel. It must have been a busy week tourist-wise, as many places were fully booked, but I finally found a cheap, if somewhat smoky, hotel overlooking the courthouse. A challenging room in a few respects, it had a shoulder height shower head in the bathroom, causing one to adopt a high Anglican approach to washing - I had to keep kneeling down in the bath to rinse my hair. Robyn didn't have this problem, funnily enough. There was a TV, though, and we enlivened a few of our evenings by watching French dubbed CSI and Friends.

Rouen is a great shopping town, and is positively bristling with baby and maternity stores. It's almost frightening how many there are. . . We enjoyed some retail therapy, and found some lovely presents for people. Dinner on our first night was found at an Italian restaurant with pavement tables. We were both intrigued by Robyn's pizza being doused in cream - an odd custom, but tasty.

Our Tuesday afternoon was spent in an excursion to the village of Giverny - home of the late Claude Monet. We travelled there by bus and train, and eventually arrived at a green spot with a pathway to the village street (Rue Claude Monet!). Pausing at a wee bridge for a quick game of Poohsticks (Bob won), we went first to the famous pink house and gardens. The house is gorgeous - huge rooms painted in bright solid colours, with big windows and a kitchen all tiled in blue-and-white with copper pans hanging on the walls. If Mrs Monet was of a domestic turn of mind at all she must have been a very happy woman. We had a wander through the front, more formal, garden, then crossed under the road to the more wild garden with the famous ponds, waterlilies and Japanese bridge. It was a beautiful garden, and we spent a long time watching dragonflies and taking photos of anything that would stay still long enough.

Dragging ourselves away, we had a short stroll through the gardens of the American Impressionist Museum (complete with poppy field) and ate an ice cream on our way up to see the church - a Medieval building with a lovely cemetery. We had to scurry back to catch the last bus, but wished we'd had longer to look around.

There is a church in Rouen dedicated to Sainte Jeanne d'Arc (situated just meters from where she was burned) and we spent some time there the next day. It is a modern building, influenced in design by ships, and is very thought provoking. It was a good place to sit and recap our historical knowledge of the Maid. We also planned to visit the tower where she was tortured, but found it was closed for a couple of weeks. Feeling ourselves somewhat thwarted, we visited instead the Musée de la céramique, where we admired the building more enthusiastically than the ceramics - there was a room clad entirely in hand painted wooden panels, each depicting a different fruit or flower. With time to kill, we then made our way to the Museum of Fine Arts, where we were favourably impressed with the clear descriptions of paintings and styles, and spent some time looking at a display of ikons and impressionist works, also admiring the modern installations in the foyer and stairwells.

Despite dismal wet weather, we wanted to visit the town of Etretat, on the Norman coast. We took a train and, on arriving, immediately hustled into a restaurant to escape the downpour and get some lunch. It was a great place - we each had crêpes and I enjoyed a local cider, and we were kept entertained by a waiter who unfortunately dropped a seafood platter just by Robyn's feet. There were shrimps everywhere! Nipping out when we spied a break in the rain we made for the beach, and admired the cliffs. There is a little church perched atop one of the cliffs, and we climbed the slippery path up to it (getting drenched in the process) to find a sweet stone building with large fish gargoyles along the sides of the low sloping roof, doing their best to drain the gutters. We hung around for a while, then descended back to the town where we patronised another café and dried out while sipping hot chocolates and writing postcards.

We had an early train to catch the next morning, and just had time to have a peep inside the Cathedral before we left. I found a pretty spiral staircase near the front of the church, and would like to explore it further some time. We had to leave fairly hastily, as we had been intrigued each morning by commotions and goings-on outside the courthouse opposite our room. There must have been a high profile case being tried, as there were vans escorted by helicopters and about 14 different types of policemen hanging about. On our last morning Robyn made the mistake of peeping out at them from between the curtains, only to find a 'sniper' aiming his weapon at her from the roofline of the courthouse! Each time she peeped he swung it around, and then later when she tried to take a photo of another cop down in the courtyard he spotted her and shook his finger 'no'. I thought they'd be waiting at the door below for us! but no such luck.