Travelin' Road Show: 06/03/14

Tues June 3 – Rouen - Giverny

5:30am on-deck. Sailing down the Seine

Beautiful views from the ship

We set our clock to be up at 5:30am as we knew that we would be sailing 50 miles up the famous Seine River to Rouen. We went up to the panorama deck and grabbed a hot chocolate to sit and enjoy the lovely French countryside either side of the ship. It is the first time a Princess Cruise ship has come up the Seine, so I imagine the pilot was a very important addition to the bridge.

Despite our hesitance to book any more excursions with Princess, we decided on the morning we docked, to take the tour to Giverny to see the home of Claude Monet and his famous gardens. Tracy and Chris were on our bus, so it made the trip more fun though Tracy was feeling a little under the weather.

And on to Giverny

Part of Inn habituated by Impressionists

Art studio at the Inn

Poppies at Giverny garden and Museum

Back of Inn

Speaks for itself

Claude Monet family grave

Random artist in village

Our Lunch spot

Sights in Giverny

Giverny is a typical French ‘village’, though it is a bit spoiled by the fact that it has become a tourist attraction. The buildings and streets though, speak for themselves, and one can imagine the days when it was merely a town with a reasonably wealthy painter living a very private life, yet ultimately attracting many other artists and sundry bohemians. We were given a short walking tour of the village and visited the grave-site of the Monet family before having an hour free to wander and have lunch. We chose a nice restaurant with an outdoor patio and were lucky enough to get a table for the four of us outside. Well sated with food and French wine, we joined the group for a tour of the Monet house and gardens. Well worth the visit if you are in the area. It was busy, but the multitude of flowers (in excess of 200,00 varieties) and water lilies made up for any crowds. It really is quite beautiful. One can imagine how Monet was inspired by his garden and the ponds, and it is understandable how devastated he must have been as his sight failed him toward the end of his life. The trip there and back meandered through rustic and rolling French countryside.
The ship was not scheduled to depart until 10pm, so we arranged to go into the town of Rouen with Chris. Tracy stayed behind to rest up. There was a shuttle bus but it had just left so we walked along the River most of the way. We went to get some cold meds for Tracy and then met Chris and Tracy’s daughter Lucie from the shuttle. (She had been to Paris for the day). The four of us, after much searching, found an outdoor restaurant and had a great meal and some good draught beer and many laughs.
The last shuttle was supposed to be at 9pm, but the ship arbitrarily decided to reduce the number of shuttles and stop them at 8:30. We thought we would get a cab and started walking, but there were no cabs to be had and time was running low. On the way we caught up to Jonathan who is confined to wheelchair and his nurse/companion, Candace struggling to get back to the ship. Chris took off ahead of us at great speed to ‘hold’ the ship. Part way there a bus containing some entertainment crew and the ‘Excursions Manager’ came by and spotted us. All of us except Chris got on board. By the time we got back to the ship (15 minutes late) Chris had made it on foot and was colourfully (and rightfully) berating the people on the ship for their stupidity in changing the shuttle times without warning, and pointing out the difficulty it had caused, not just for us but for Jonathan. I think they will hear more about this in our review at the end of the cruise. That evening Janice was quite alarmed to see that the inner, lower area of both legs had turned a very bright scarlet colour. They weren’t itchy or lumpy or bothersome, so she decided to wait and see what it was like in the morning before taking further action.