France: Rouen

We decided to do a Less-Driving Day, since all of our nerves were a bit frayed from the hectic driving, the bossy Navimatrix voice of the GPS system, and especially from Rosie's incessant blood-curdling SCREAMING, as is her habit any time she's in a car.

So from our B&B we made the short little trek to Rouen, and parked in the shadow of enormous, commanding yet graceful, intricate gothic cathedral. Not mentioned in any guidebooks, though, because on the same block are three others, more ancient, more impressive, or more renouned! Meh, a mere FIFTEENTH century example. Pluh.

We stuffed Rosie in the backpack and wandered into the skeewompus leaning half-timbered medieval alleys, drooled all over ourselves looking into shopwindows. At one point, I thought I was looking into a pastry shop-- I licked my lips and got closer, and saw that it was actually a baby shoe store. Every shop was tasty-looking.

Rosie, eventually, fell asleep.


We went to the ceramics museum! This was the only good part, actually. It explained the process of the famous (but boring, sorry) white ceramics.
It's Kate and Liz!
I LOVED the ironworks museum. It's in another ancient cathedral (meh! Dime a dozen) turned gothic house for somebody's rennaisance ironworks collection.
I loved these delicate contraptions-- they reminded me of the "philosophical instruments" from The Golden Compass...
The museum, with all the ornate iron ornaments...
Why go to france?
Crepes.
The Cathedral! And what, hehe, is your impression of it? hehe, get it? Get it?
Lovely, innit!
And.... The Rouen Cathedral! one of the famous series by Monet, at the Fine Arts Museum.

Look at these creepy guys. I mean, venerable saints. I mean, LOTR nazgul props.


This is the tomb of Rollo, the great-grandfather of William the Conquerer. ANCIENT history here guys.
I loved this creepy crouching angel, about to stand up and fill the space with the beating of wings.
Goooooootttthhhiiiiiiiccccccc......
Ah, this is for my inner catholic. As a kid I visited all these European churches and it made a deep impression on me, and I've always been a closet catholic since. I LOVE the candles, the sorrow, the tragic music, the solemnity, the emptiness, the pomp, the ritual, the history, the mysticism, the blatant paganism.

The outside of the Rouen Cathedral. Notice the guy doing a handstand?
The underside of the Big Clock passageway...
The great clock itself.

We found a little playground near the museums and Rosie had a lovely time going down the tiny slide in a cloud of tobacco smoke from all the other attending parents, and got some toasty tasty sandwiches from a little bakery and ate them sitting by a fountain. It was lovely how Rouen is this bustling city center in the middle of wide open pastures, with hardly any suburbs. Really, isn't that ideal? So everybody lives in the city but right near the country with no ghastly endless suburbian maze to waste away in...

Thanks Rouen! Thanks Normandy! Now we're on to the next thing, heading south to Lyon.

Normandy--Za Land of Ze Pomme and Ze Stinky and Delicious Fromage

Yes. We are in France at Long Last.

And nobody wore a beret or waved their private parts at our aunties. I saw plenty of people with armfuls of baguettes, and even lots of iconically stripey shirts. However, we encountered absolutely no snootiness. Everyone we interacted with, from train station assistants, waiters, store clerks, people at the next table at cafes, fellow guests at B&Bs, strangers at gas stations who let us use their credit cards... EVERYONE was so incredibly kind.
Roquefort. Yes.
Actually, I have to admit I am a know-nothing about cheese. And French food. And a negative-know-nothing about wine. My first sip of wicked and experimental wine was not reminiscent of oak or mellow fruit-- it was paint thinner. So... I didn't exactly do my culinary homework before arriving in this country.

Nevertheless.

Even being as blind, ignorant, and mute as an infant.... it was a culinary explosion. It seemed uncouth to take pictures of all of our meals, but I wanted to. All of them. Every single meal-- even throw-away, cheapo, on the run, chasing toddler semi-meals-- was a revelation-- a tutorial in taste and excellence and detail and presentation and portion.

It was SO FRUSTRATING! Wonderful, and impossible. We don't speak french, I couldn't ask for clarification, I didn't understand the whole storied-ness of each item... but I knew it was there.
I tell people we didn't scratch the surface. We didn't even RUB the surface. Or even BREATHE on it. Maybe we just realized that there IS a surface-- like breathing onto a window, you see for a moment that there is actually something there.

Maybe, the emperor has clothes.
So, my treasures, here's a tiny taste of Normandy.

We stayed here-- La Ferronnerie, a tiny bit south of Rouen. A family run B&B with handsome stocky sunburnt Laurent and young ruddy cheeked farmwife and chef Isabelle, and their three kids and a grandma. Rosie was delighted and got a much deserved break-- playing with the cat named Tigress, and the little 3 year old girl Elisa and 18 month old boy Liam.

The home is gorgeous-- exposed shining wood timbers and beams, speckled natural plasters, wide bright windows and smooth stone and wood floors. But the food.... we ate breakfast and dinner here for two days. All afternoon the house is full of the smell of Real Beef-- a lean, grassy, gamey, MEATY smell, with red wine from the sauce, and butter and garlic in the pan fried potatoes, lightly dressed leaves of lettuce with cold meats, homemade Alsacian noodles and grilled summer squash, hot from the oven apple tarts with sugared fromage blanc...

Dinner is such a major event: we sat down, tummies rumbling, at 7:30. The first salad course appeared at 8:15. We were going MAD with desire. But the dinner crept along for THREE HOURS. The other guests-- all families from Paris-- talked and flowed and made thoughtful attempts to include us and our shockingly bad French. I set off a minor explosion when I asked, "so what is the difference between wine and cider?" The debate raged for an hour. It was astoundingly wonderful.

Here's the B&B playset
And after a slightly Harrowing journey to La Havre, we were rewarded with a hike and a picnic at this beautiful haunting atlantic beach. Ruins of bunkers, rebar, scrapmetal, wood and concrete are eroding away into the beach and cliff landscape. Really lovely.



Normandy is all about the dairy.




And geodes!

Here's our little cliff-top picnic, Rosie with her plush dutch "klompens." She had just started taking her first hesitant steps again. I told her, "won't it be wonderful when you can run and skip and jump and dance again?" She thought about that for a second, and then stood up and gave it a try.
BAGUETTES.
My favorite little town in Normandy, that we just stumbled across while trying to find a freeway. Ry. Beyond picturesque.
Our other B&B! Another delicious dinner and quaint setting.
Rosie's first floppy steps...


FRomaaaaaaaaage...
We stopped at a little farm cheese store. I don't know what we got (did I mention we don't speak french?) but it was fragrant and bubbly and crumbly and with a cidery rind. And we also got a heart of Nuefchatel. *sigh*. I heart nuefchatel....

Holland-- Arnhem

After a week in t 'Sgravenzade we moved East towards Arnhem. We spent a lovely day at the Openlucht Museum full of beautiful historical houses, windmills, heritage cattle breeds, and buttery puffy little poffertjes from HEAVEN. Go to Holland. Eat the Poffertjes.
Oh yeah, and a carousel. You can see Andrew in the background leaping boldly from horse to horse.
Picturesque, much?

Inter-breed lesbian cattle love!

A chance for kids (and adults) to practice milking on a non-kicking cow...

And kabouters.
Matt LOVED the train!

And we LOVED! seeing Angela in Appeldorn. I was so glad to reconnect with her and see why she and my mom were such good friends.
We took a little side trip over to the campus of Wageningen University, where Matt got to chat with some folks about international agriculture research exchange, dissertation topics, and poffertjes. Well, probably about poffertjes. I mean, come on, it's Holland. Why talk about anything BESIDES poffertjes?
Here's the campus:

Poor Rosie was trapped in the backpack for all naps.

Goodbye Holland! It was Brill to be back again for a minute, and enjoy the amazing cheeses, the "netjes" well ordered little gardens, the understated feats of impossible engineering, and best of all the company of good friends (HILARIOUS Asbjiorn. Huh-Larious. And kind and masterful and warm and delicious Marta and Andre, and Celeste and Madelone-- BEAUTIFUL, all of them) and MY DEAR FAMILY! Heart yall, we're goin' to FRANCE, next! With a suitcase full of stroopwaffels. And poffertjes. And possibly some friets with greasy mayo. And Pindasauce. And Fla. And Spekulaas.