23 | August | 2012 | laurieanichols

Solitaire devant le Bassin d’Arcachon / Lonely man looking at the Arcachon Bay

In France at Le Canon, the town is in between the bay with the tides and the ocean with the waves. I had never imagined anything scary in the ocean, it is too beautiful and clear for me to envision scary things in it. Now the bay is a different story, when it is low tide the sand out where the bay normally laps the shore becomes dark and murky and while you are walking further out to reach the warm still waters, your feet get sucked into the slimy, oozy, thick murky sand and I am getting the bad goosebumps just reminiscing walking through that. Your imagination starts to feed your fears of things biting and stinging your toes as you blindly sink into the muck. That to me is much scarier than anything in the deep.

Tags

France, Normandy, pictures, postaday2012, Rouen, travel

: Rouen plage, the temporary beach for the city’s residents

: the beautiful church’s ceiling resembling a ship

: La Cathedral of Rouen

: the church’s stained glass windows that resembles a ship

: La Cathedral Rouen

: a typical church

: another church

: La Cathedral Rouen

: Rouen Plage

: La Cathedral Rouen

: Brilliant new bridge in Rouen

: Rouen street architecture

: Rouen plage

: new bridge in Rouen

: Rouen architecture Columbage

: Rouen plage, scuba diving tank

: La Cathedral Rouen

: brilliant new bridge Rouen

: the place in front of the church resembling a ship where they burned Joan of Arc

: brilliant new bridge Rouen

There were so many interesting things to see in Rouen, the Cathedral being one of them, I remember last time that I had been in Rouen, we saw a magnificent showing of Claude Monet’s paintings shown at night using the Cathedral itself as the screen of Monet’s paintings honoring this magnificent Cathedral. The other smaller versions of cathedrals that crop up outside of the city are amazing as well in the slightly more condensed version. I really love the church that honors the site where Joan of Arc met her death at the hands of the English and the fascinating exterior and interior that looks like an upside down ship. The wood is absolutely beautiful, I had to take a picture of it. The Rouen plage series I had to show because I think that it’s great that the city temporarily provides a vacation like haven for its residents, they had a lot of activities for all ages of children and adults and the mini- scuba diving tank was a nice gesture.

The brilliant new bridge I thought was magnificent, I had never seen a bridge like that before and its dimensions were worth putting in a picture. I also love the architecture of the houses, it is called Columbage and it makes great use of wood throughout its structure. I find the houses have a romantic feel to them, they also have thatched roofs on some of them increasing the romanticism, I didn’t get a chance to get any pictures, I don’t remember why, but knowing me it is probably because I ran out of battery juice because my cousin did bring us around to show us those types of roofs, just think of the houses in the Shire of Lord of the Rings movies, like the house of Frodo. His roof is like the roofs of some of the houses around Rouen.

I really recommend Rouen as a must visit city, it is the perfect gateway to exploring the Normandy countryside which is also the capital of apples, cheeses and butter. The food is fantastic and the people warm and friendly.