One of my (many) passions in life is ancient and medieval architecture. Basically, any building built before industrialization/modernization is fascinating to me. I love the craftsmanship and skill that go into each individual building. I love the textures, the imperfections, the beauty, etc. etc. etc.
And right now, my brain is currently overwhelmed from all the incredible medieval buildings we've been seeing lately. I keep asking Paul to take pictures of random medieval buildings so I can look at them later, when my brain and eyeballs have caught up with each other after the overwhelm from it all. It's been a lot of fun to see all of these well-preserved buildings.
But I know that there's only so many medieval buildings that Paul can patiently listen to me 'ooh' and 'ahh' about before we need to balance that with other cool stuff, so we added some random non-medieval things to our schedule recently as well. Let's take a closer look...
Day 21: Fort la Latte (Château de La Roche Goyon) and Beach day
We started our day by checking out a castle. This one was mainly for defense, as it was strategically placed on the English channel, so it's more of a fort or fortress than a fancy castle. Fort la Latte (aka Château de La Roche Goyon) was a bit of a walk from the parking lot, so Paul took some pretty pictures along the walk. They purposely carved holes in the hedges so you could peek at the castle/fort along the walk.
It was really well preserved and a lot of fun to explore. Paul went up to the top of the highest tower and took some great pics that show the beautiful water as well as the many layers of the fortress.
And, of course, it's just not a proper castle if there isn't some sort of folklore and weird mystery stones in the area. There's three different folklore stories connected to this mystery stone by the castle. No matter what, it's based on a local folktale about a giant named Gargantua (really clever name there). One story says the giant lost it's tooth (aka the stone). Another story says he lost his finger. And the other story, wellll, I'm sure you can figure it out.
After enjoying a few hours at the fortress, we drove another hour or so towards our next airbnb. We were GOING to stop at St. Malo - a walled old city where pirates lived! It looked sooooo cool as we drove past, but my goodness, the traffic was horrid. We tried to park in about 5 different parking lots, and they were all filled, with lines going into the roads. It was pure chaos, and since Paul and I don't like crowds or touristy things or crowds or cities or trying to find parking or crowds....we just drove away. Maybe someday, in the off-season, we can visit St. Malo....
Since that plan went out the window, we decided to just chill and read at a nearby beach. It was really nice to relax and cool off in the very-brisk ocean and with the cooling wind after so many brutally hot days in a row.
Day 22: Mont Saint Michel!!!!
This is one of the very few things on our list that we knew was touristy and we still wanted to do it. Mont Saint Michel has been on my bucket list for many years now, and I was super excited to finally visit.
Since this is a very very popular tourist stop, we got up ridiculously early to beat as many people there as possible. Our airbnb came with bikes, so we rode bikes the 2-ish miles down the road to get there.
The land here is so flat you can see Mont Saint Michel for miles and miles
If we weren't in a hurry to beat the crowds I could have stared at this place for hours.
Some of the cool things about this place - it's a rock in the ocean and they decided to build an abbey here starting in the 8th century. Slowly, over the years, the resulting abbey became as towering and imposing as it is now. You could only get to the abbey/village during low tide, which helped keep it preserved and protected from all enemies. Even at low tide, you had to take the one path to it because all surrounding it is tons of quicksand.
This abbey was a sacred pilgrimage place in medieval times and it was also SUPER important for the preservation of many books/manuscripts. The main purpose of the monks here was to make copies of important books/papers to save them. It's one of the many reasons why I love it so much. That, and, I mean, look how amazing it looks.
To get to the abbey - which is way at the top of the rock - you have to walk up a super narrow street of absolutely adorable medieval shops and buildings. I was in absolute medieval architecture heaven.
The only street to the top, though, is super narrow, and I knew it would soon be jammed full of tourists. So I begrudgingly continued the journey to the abbey (don't worry - we took TONS of building pictures so I can drool over them later).
Getting higher....looking down on the village
Looking at a medieval cart/device for getting supplies into the abbey
This place is ridiculously tall....looking up so much hurt my neck
Apparently, there was a cool virtual reality tour thing to do in the abbey, where you point a tablet at walls and they show you what it looked like in the golden days. But unfortunately, Paul and I could NOT figure out where to get them, so we just walked around in awe of the place without the cool tech. Maybe I'll remember to check the internets to see if someone uploaded things about the abbey there...Anyway, it was a beautiful place and really big, so it took a few hours to get through everything.
I had originally been pretty worried that Mont Saint Michel would be too touristy and crowded, but since we got up early and beat the crowds we had a great time there. We wisely walked the ramparts to exit the place, since by the time we left the main narrow street was bonkers busy. I highly recommend this place!
Day 23: Bayeux (but no tapestry...)
As Paul mentioned in an earlier post, we (okay, mainly me) were really looking forward to seeing the famous Bayeux tapestry in the city of Bayeux. It's an ancient/medieval tapestry that's super long and tells the story of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, led by William, Duke of Normandy.
Tragically, the tapestry was shipped to England for the summer, so we didn't get to see it, but we had already made reservations for an airbnb in the town, so we found other things to do instead.
I'll only share a picture of it from the outside.
Anyway, as I tried to recover from my spook, we walked around the corner and found this ancient and beautiful tree. It was planted in 1797!!!! The vibes completely changed. I was entranced and whispered 'The Divine lives here'. It was such a beautiful tree, and I was really bummed that I couldn't hug it because it's roped off. So I blew it a kiss instead and looked at it for quite a long time.
Spiritual Tree in front of Icky Church
As we were strolling the gardens, we heard live music getting started. Paul went to investigate and it looked like the whole town was getting ready to party that night. It turned out that every July 13, all around the country, folks celebrate a Firefighter's Ball. This is a huge town party, hosted by the local firefighters and has ties to traditions from Bastille Day (which is July 14).
I crashed at our place and Paul went to enjoy the local party, which, naturally, involved crowds, food, and loud music so he didn't stay too long, but he still was happy to check it out. Unfortunately, this is the one night where loud (LOUD, you guys) music happens at the party until about 3am. It was so loud that we could hear it very clearly at our airbnb and it was a rough night of sleep for us both. Even though we were sleep-deprived, it was still interesting to experience something super-local/French!
Day 24: Bastille Day!
We knew it was Bastille Day today, and usually that would mean fireworks, but the country is experiencing drought and excessive heat waves, so all fireworks were cancelled. We didn't know what else to expect for a national holiday, and what we learned is that lots of things are closed and most folks just chill at home with loved ones. This meant it was hard to find things to do, so it was a chill type of day.
We headed to Pont-Audemer, which, GASP, is a cute medieval town, filled with canals and cute medieval buildings. When we arrived, the town square was closed to celebrate the firefighter again. The square was full of firetrucks and people were lined up to greet firefighters. I don't know what the history is here with Bastille Day and an obsession for firefighters, and this is my note to myself to remember to research that at some point. It's kinda weird to just line up to shake the hand of firefighters, but it was intriguing to watch.
We/I admired multiple adorable medieval structures and the cute canals running through the town. We also stopped in the town's cathedral, and I am happy to report there were no bad vibes. It was beautiful!
After that, we headed to Leproserie Chapelle Saint-Thomas, an ancient Leprosy village located in the middle of nowhere. I absolutely LOVE travelling to these hidden gems. It's always fun to go down roads that get smaller and smaller, and wonder if this is accurate or if google is trying to get us murdered by a sheep farmer. The roads eventually reminded us of Ireland, with hedges on both sides and you keep thinking you're actually on a driveway to someone's house.
We found the Leprosy village eventually. It was really nicely explained through signs about the history, which, obviously, was pretty sad.
Villagers still come here to put things on the altar as respect for the dead.
Once we got our fill of Leprosy history, we decided a good clean was in order. We spent the remainder of the day at the beach/ocean, reading and swimming and relaxing.
Day 25: Escargot and Etretat
We've been trying really hard to eat as many French foods as possible while we're here. We've gotten most of them checked off our list by now (I have kinda stalled on Beef Tartare and obsessively eat it everywhere I can) but one thing we haven't tried yet is Escargot.
We stopped at an Escargot Farm to learn all about them. The tour was actually fascinating, even though we had to stand in the back and use Google Translate to understand what the guy was saying.
This is when he opened up the boards to show all the snails - so many of them!
At the end, we were HOPING that the guide would give everyone a sample. Or, have cooked ones to purchase. But tragically, while we learned a lot about Escargot, we did not get to eat any. Boo! At least on the positive side, we got to have them hangout on our hands for a little bit. They are cold, wet, and tickle.
After our tour, we decided to break up the day of driving by stopping in Fecamp to check out the Benedictine palace/distillery. If I understand the translation of the French correctly, some con-man in the 1800s (think: Robber Baron Era) decided to claim that he found an ancient Benedictine Grimoire in his attic that had a medicinal and tasty beverage recipe in it.
He then conned French people into thinking that his beverage tasted good and used all the money from his cons to make the most elaborate and over-the-top gilded monstrosity ever. In a typical ironic twist, he died before it was completed.
The dude really loved gothic architecture and didn't like bare walls at all.
Am I the only one that thinks the windows are a spooky face?
We did a tour, thinking it would be a typical length tour. But no, it went on forever. There were so many over-done gaudy rooms. At the end, we got to try some samples of the beverage, which is still made today and beloved by some people. Paul and I were not fans. It was like syrupy brandy.
By the time the very-long tour was done, my ankle was not doing great. All the walking (walking on sand is really bad on them) we've been doing lately has officially caught up and I was in rough shape. Since we knew that Paris was coming up next, we decided that I needed to ice/rest while Paul did one final "quick walk" and adventure.
Google lied and said it was a quick walk from the car to see the Etretat Cliffs, but it was longer than expected (thank goodness that I chose to stay in the car and rest my ankle). Paul ended up being gone for a few hours, and I was slightly worried by the time he got back to the car.
He got some great pics of these gorgeous white limestone dramatic cliffs and he had a fun time, so it was worth it. Another awesome day in the books! Next up is Paris...
