July 23, 2026
It’s “Golden Hour” in Atlanta. Photography’s favorite time for capturing golden colors and shadows as the sun sets. Combine it with the many mirrored buildings in midtown, and it makes a dramatic backdrop for a new adventure.
Teresa and I are off to France for a river cruise from Paris to Normandy.
July 24, 2026
Once off the plane, we started our long march. Up an escalator. Down an endless glass walkway. Through a phalanx of stainless steel bollards. Then a train. Then more escalators, hallways and bollards.
Finally we reached the border. Customs and immigration. And in front of us was a large mostly empty convention-sized hall filled with stanchions and purple belts dividing the room into lanes for holding hundreds and hundreds of potential immigrants.
To our right, nearby, were the customs officers squirreled away in their glass cubicles, sitting on stools elevating them above the crowds so they could look down upon the teaming masses which, of course, there were none.
To our left … to our far, far left … was a lone customs official in an orange construction-style vest apparently waving to us. From our distance it was hard to see or tell what he was doing. He seemed to be indicating that we had to head his way instead of jumping under the belts blocking us from the nearby customs officers.
Complying with his apparent instructions, Teresa and I turned in his direction. After several minutes of walking, we arrived to the young man in the orange vest. “Where are you from”, he solemnly asked. “Atlanta”, we said. And he pointed his finger to the entrance.
The entrance of “The Maze”.
I followed Teresa as she entered. A few other people from our flight entered the maze to our right, but in a different lane.
Our lane went straight for a while before turning around and heading back. Then it turned again heading to the glass booths on the far wall. A young woman in an orange vest appeared and she moved one of the purple magnetic belts. She pointed to the right and we followed the new path.
Our other fellow passengers were facing the same scenario. They were now heading left. It was like we were racing in some sort of scene from Tron the movie. Left. Then right. Then another orange vested official reconfigured the belts and we were heading backwards.
“It’s like a rat maze”, I told Teresa as we turned left again. “But without cheese. In the country that invented cheese. How is that possible?”
“Soon”, I told her, “We’ll be in Paris”.
July 24, 2026
We finally made it through customs, zut alors, and headed to our new home for the next 10 days, the ms Serene, Tauck Tours newest river boat docked in Paris on the Seine River.
Checking in, we quickly toured the boat and before you could say “incroyable”, we headed out for an afternoon cruise through town.
I quickly sought out our captain, a 24-year-old wizened man of the seas, and asked if I could water ski through downtown Paris.
“NON!”, was the young captain’s reply.
“But I’m an American” no longer seemed to work its magic.
Feeling dejected, I headed back to the upper deck and was surprised to find that “Lady Liberty” had recently returned home to France. Looking exhausted (it’s a long flight) at least she smiled while posing in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Heading out of town, we passed under several very low bridges, the smarter passengers ducking in time.
As Marie Antoinette would say, “It’s nothing to lose your head over”.
July 25, 2026
We left our riverside dock early in the morning and climbed aboard our Tauck Tourbus. Our destination: Le Marais on the eastern side of cental Paris. The 4th arrondissement.
On our way we followed Paris’ perimeter freeway, much like Atlanta’s I-285 filled with traffic, passing by the last of the latest high rises, the Pyramid and a pair of wobbly, broken looking glass towers. Paris, apparently, is finally serious about banning high rises in the city and the Pyramid is supposed to be the last one allowed. The previous high rise, Montparnasse, was built over 50 years ago and caused an uproar then. But Paris fell off the wagon one weekend recently and allowed one too many. That’s it. No more high rises. Leave that to Dubai or other third world cities.
We pulled up to the curb just past the Bastille monument. Les Marais is the oldest neighborhood left in Paris, untouched by the city’s major urban renewal project from the early 1800s spearheaded by Haussman, Napoleon the Third’s chief of staff (yes, there were three Napoleons).
Hausmann tore down medieval Paris and installed straight wide boulevards, sewers and lighting. A lot of the inspiration for this “updating” was so that, if the locals got uppity, as they had been doing since playing soccer with Marie Antoinette’s head for a few decades, the new emporer could bring in cannons to blast away any barricades erected to keep out all the king’s men. Apparently, barricades were very effective for a while.
Alors!
Le Marais was untouched by the urban renewal so it still has cobblestone streets and Edwardian timber sided structures from before the 1700s. It’s also where the Bastille, a prison, was located before the aforementioned uppity locals tore it down and started their soccer match. Why it wasn’t the first place Haussman “renewed” is baffling.
Our first destination was the Place Vosges, the first of several large fountain-bedazzled, tree-filled squares surrounded by pricey, pricey architectural homes, of which one is the home of Victor Hugo, France’s famous author from the 1800s.
It’s also the home to the city’s Jewish Quarter. Along the way, we passed a Holocaust museum and memorial. A wall on the side of the museum listed the names of the thousands of people lost as well as the names of the local Parisians who risked their lives protecting and hiding their neighbors.
A Jewish deli nearby was attacked in 1982 and six people were killed. It is considered the deadliest attack on a Jewish target in France since World War II.
There’s a lot going on in the 4th A.
After an hour of walking and gawking, we stopped at an outdoor cafe to have coffees. Adjacent, was a brightly lit carousel filled with noisy children. You could barely hear the trucks and motorcycles roaring past.
The music from the carousel provided a background sound track. Baroque and classical music. At least until a group of Americans arrived with children. Once on board and spinning, the operators changed the music to Star Wars sound effects with occasional bursts of machine gun fire. Strange, I thought.
We continued our Le Marais tour and ended up at the Paris City Hall, modestly tucked away in some blocks-long palace. The view of the recently reconstructed Notre Dame Cathedral across the river was stunning.
After a couple of miles of walking, the tour buses picked us up and drove us to the other side of the river to the Sorbonne where we got out to wander around on our own and find a cafe. It was now noon.
Teresa and I found a nice empty cafe. Teresa enjoyed the (authentic) French Onion soup and I had the Swinging Medallions of Pork.
Following lunch, we walked to the nearby Pantheon where Voltaire, Victor Hugo and Madame Curie are buried. I was hoping to find one or several Napoleons buried there but they weren’t.
Heading back to our bus rendezvous point, we found a bustling outdoor market where I bought a strawberry beret.
Like one of those you would find in a second hand store.
July 25, 2026
Tauck Tours provided a real surprise tonight and arranged for a private tour of the Louvre after closing hours.
The Louvre has 10s of thousands of visitors daily and it can be too crowded many times to see anything up close. It’s like trying to get through the Atlanta Airport and find Mona Lisa who is stuck in the security line.
And this weekend is the end of the Tour de France with the race finishing tomorrow afternoon on the Champs Ellyses. So Paris is packed.
After an hour drive thru the heavy traffic made worse by the closing of many major streets for tomorrow’s race, our bus pulled into the basement parking lot at the Louvre.
Finally inside and under the glass pyramid of the lobby, it was strange to see the place empty.
We had a great Louvre tour guide and she went into incredible detail on all the major works of art. It was easy to get close and enjoy the details she was describing.
We got up close with Venus de Milo, Nike on her Boat and of course the Mona Lisa.
What a treat. Apparently Tauck is apparently known for this type of surprise experience.
Teresa and I were here last November with another great guide but the crowds kept you from seeing these treasures up close. Everything felt rushed. And in the Mona Lisa room, all you could do was squeeze through to the exit without getting anywhere near the famous painting.
To illustrate, I’ve paired the pictures below which show this visit on the left with our visit last November on the right. Same painting, different scenes.
Finished with our private tour of the Louvre, we headed back to our river boat.
The sun was setting on our circuitous route back as we passed by the famous La Madeleine, covered in scaffolding. Apparently, another great treasure being cleaned and repaired.
But somehow, we managed to orbit the Arc de Triomphe even though it is the final landmark for tomorrow’s Tour de France finish and, of all places, should not be accessible by motorized vehicles.
Jul 26, 2026
It’s Versailles Day.
Outside in the morning and it was cold and grey. Overcast with temperatures in the low 60s. The breeze made you wish you brought a jacket but, just a few weeks ago, the temperatures were over 100. At least the Tour de France cyclists will love it when the race finishes in the afternoon nearby.
The palace was close to our riverboat. The bus trip took 20 minutes.
The scene at Versailles was what I consider normal especially after last night’s visit to the Louvre. Crowded. Packed with tourists.
Once inside and past heavily armed security, our great guide began detailing the history of this “new” but famous palace.
Briefly, the Louvre, which was the home to the French King, just got too small. And it was in the city with all the city types of problems. “Urban” as they say. So his highness packed up his things (well, not the king but his many, many servants) and moved to the suburbs.
I think this was Louis the 14th and it was in the early 1600s. There were so many Louie Louies that I lost count. 14,15,16? So I will just stick with plain old Louis. Or “Lew” as I prefer to call him.
Anyhow, Lew, and his wife, Marie (all the queens were named Marie in this same time period. Strange, I know) bought the biggest lot in the nicest suburban town called Versailles southwest of downtown Paris. There, he built a big, REALLY BIG, house and filled it with all sorts of nice things.
Then, he had all his friends show up and they partied all the time. At some point, Lew ran out of money and assembled his political pals to discuss making more money (for Lew) by increasing taxes. All Lew had to do was to get the three political groups to mostly say yes to his idea.
The three groups were; the Church (who never paid taxes), the Nobility (who never paid taxes), and the People’s Parliament (who were the tax payers). Each group got to cast one vote and it was close. Like a World Cup game. The final score was 2 to 1 in favor of increasing Lew’s salary. You can guess who the lone holdout was.
Anyhow, when the uppity hoi-polloi found out about the results, they lost their heads and by “they”, I mean Lew and Marie.
So tragic. They seemed like such a nice couple.
Once we finished our tour, we headed back to the boat to grab lunch. A quick 20 minute drive and … we missed our exit.
The bus driver took the next exit and that’s when the adventure began.
He turned the megabus down a road that lead to a neighborhood packed with multi-floor apartments. And increasingly narrower streets.
One block. Two blocks. Three blocks. And we’re stuck. The bus was too big to move any further without crushing the multitude of curb side parked vehicles.
The bus lurched to a stop. On the sidewalk, an old French woman wagged her finger at the driver and started getting “mouthy”. I can read lips but my French comprehension is not so great but let me tell you she wasn’t saying nice things.
Slowly we started backing up. Inch by inch. Meter by meter. Horns squeaked. We were almost scraping the paint off of the adjacent cars.
The bus crossed an intersection and continued backing up. Slowly. Slowly.
Finally, enough room opened up on the side that opposing traffic could start flooding through. There was a burst of motorcycles, scooters and tricycles.
Then another intersection passed by as we continued backing up ever so slowly. And the bus driver was doing a great job until he nearly backed up a loading ramp from a delivery truck. Much mayhem and mayhew ensued.
Finally, we were out of the cramped neighborhood and came to rest in a roundabout. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and applauded.
In 5 minutes we were back at the riverboat. As I exited, the driver apologized and said that the roads he normally takes were closed due to the Tour de France race.
“Don’t worry”, I told him. “It’s nothing to lose your head over”.
July 26, 2026
After everyone was back on board, we left Paris and sailed west, heading towards our next destination, Rouen, 90 miles away.
A few thoughts from our morning spent at Versailles.
The life and times of the French people in the 1600 to 1800 period are similar to today’s world. It was a time of struggle for the common people and they were taken advantage by the powers that controlled their lives. There was, similar to today, a big divide between the “haves” and the “have-nots”.
They had an elected Parliament which shared powers with the church and nobility. This elected Parliament was mostly for show and didn’t hold any real power as the church and nobility really controlled things.
The kings and their families in many ways were the entertainers of the day. “Influencers”, as our guide said. The media stars of their day.
Versailles was really set up as a performance venue. Outside the main gates is a huge parking lot to accommodate many carriages coming for the shows. Very similar to CBS Television City in today’s Hollywood.
The reason this becomes clear is that Versailles had two distinct areas. The public areas where the King performed his daily ritual live in front of a live studio audience and the backstage area where the family had their private living quarters.
Each of the public salons, huge rooms elaborately decorated from floor to and including ceilings are effectively stages large enough for audiences.
Whether it was waking up in bed, going to Mass, eating lunch, meeting for business or just lounging around, a separate salon was built to accommodate these activities. And these were open to audiences to watch in person.
One of the King Louies danced ballet in front of the royal audiences until he was in his 60s. A painting in one of the salons shows him decked out and flashing his stocking covered legs. He is today credited with creating modern ballet.
Ooh la la!
The whole Royal Family Show at the end of the day was just one big schtick designed to entertain and distract from the real machinations of daily French life.
Bread and circuses as the Romans said.
It was like today’s reality TV except there was only one channel and one show.
At the end, their system failed and the first French Republic, sans King “Ozzie Ozbourne”, was born following the revolution of 1789.
So much like America today in the 21st Century. The real gears are turned without public knowledge while the circus show grabs all the attention.
A proven recipe for disaster. Or positive change.
July 27, 2026
We sailed all night and arrived at 9AM at our next port of call, Rouen, 93,206 miles west of Paris, according to Google. “Wow, France is a really big country”, I thought, until I remembered that the periods and commas are reversed for numbers in Europe. I’m sure that’s caused some navigational confusion before.
Rouen is the Capitol of Normandy and the largest city between Paris and the Atlantic. It has occasionally been in the right place at the wrong time. Most notably, recently, during World War 2 when it developed a bad case of the Nazis with the only cure being getting flattened by Allied bombs.
And flattened it got.
Sadly, little of the medieval and historic city is left today but what is there, or what has been rebuilt, makes this place worth a visit and walking tour which Teresa and I did today.
Rouen, pronounced “WARNH” in French and not “ROO-EN” as any sane person would say, was once called “the city of 100 church steeples” but they’ve managed to whittle that down to about 30 steeples with help from the previously mentioned Allies.
Speaking of French, I took 4 years of French language while in high school and college and it still makes absolutely no sense to me. While I can read it a little bit, pronouncing it is impossible because the French refuse to follow any grammatical rules and the only two things I know are, (#1) if you see it in print, don’t pronounce it the way it looks and (#2) only speak through your nose.
Eh!?
So strange too since their neighbors, the Germans, pronounce absolutely everything you see in writing plus, probably, half of the stuff the French threw away. Sounds like a potential source of conflict.
Personally, I think that absolutely no one knows how to pronounce anything in French and that all the locals are just faking it and saying it the way they think it should be said. I base this on the number of ways I heard locals pronounce this city’s name and everyone was different. The trick to the language is just say it with confidence and if someone doesn’t understand you, it’s their problem.
Anyhow, Rouen’s most famous claim is being where Joan of Arc was tried and burned at the stake for, as Grace Jones sang, “Feeling like a woman, looking like a man”. That’s right, at the age of 19, Joan of Arc was brutally murdered for wearing men’s clothes. Some French religious wacko found something in the Bible and the church jailed her, tried her, found her guilty, and burned her alive. Thank God for religion as it gives these folks something to hide behind as they get their thrills.
And of course, now the French are known for their haute couture and setting fashion trends so, at the end of the day, Joan started a whole new industry.
Sacre bleu!
Fast forward 500 years and in 1909, the Catholic Church canonized her so now she’s a saint and a fancy new modernistic church (built in the 1970s) was constructed on the site of her execution and now Joan of Arc souvenirs are for sale everywhere. I can’t wait to get home to break out my Joan of Arc BBQ Set including Spatula.
At the end of our tour, inside Joan’s new church, Teresa and I decided to do our own tour of Rouen. We wandered around town and found the local art museum with a handsome Alexander Calder mobile out front. Inside, free of charge, were artworks specializing in images of people looking sickly or being tortured in some sort of religious ways. Saints, apparently, don’t have a pleasant stay while visiting.
We quickly departed and headed out to find a bistro for a late lunch. We walked through some refreshing, flowered gardens and passed by the Palace of Justice with stone walls pockmarked by craters from WW2 bombs. “Whatever it takes to cure that Nazi problem”, I said as we passed.
Around the corner and down some narrow winding streets we found a sunny plaza with a ring of restaurants and outdoor seating under umbrellas.
Lunch was delicious. Teresa had the Carrots Miso and I had a Deluxe Joan Burger. Yummy.
Exhausted and still lightly disturbed, we headed back to the riverboat to relax and refresh for the evening’s events.
July 27, 2026
We had dinner at a local chateau. Tauck made the arrangements.
After a fifteen-minute bus drive, we arrived at the Château du Taillis, now under reconstruction and doing business as an event center.
The owner of the property, a man in his 40s, met our group and explained the chateau’s history. When he was a teenager, his parents decided to leave Paris and buy a country estate. It was 1990. Ever since, it has been under “reconstruction”, or “non-stop repairs” as I prefer to call it. Always read the Property Disclosure Statements, I tell people when buying real estate. Always.
Anyhow, he’s done (and is doing) a great job. And the seven-course dinner was great too. I just wonder how the 200-foot-tall California redwood tree ended up in the front yard.
July 28, 2026
Another night cruise took us to the city of Le Havre, the port city for Paris. During the war, this was a key strategic location and filled with troublesome Nazis.
The D-Day invasion started with a diversion. And that was the flattening of Le Havre. The Allies were successful with both goals.
And nothing was left of Le Havre. So today, it is all new construction and mostly a “meh” sadly because, before its destruction, it was described as the “small Paris”. It feels like a generic, suburban city now. At least it has some notable buildings designed by Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer, who designed Brasilia, the capital of Brazil.
In the morning, we boarded a bus and headed up the coast to the seaside city of Etretat.
Etretat is a small and beautiful city on the English Channel framed to the north and south by large white limestone buttressed cliffs still housing World War II pillboxes.
The beach is not one that I would recommend running barefoot across. It’s composed of rocks. Or “pebbles” as they call them around here. Attractive pebbles, however, as people started taking them home as souvenirs. It proved to be such a problem, that the French were afraid their beach might one day be stripped clean, so now they have “Pebble Police” who patrol the area looking for pebble thieves. If they catch you stealing pebbles, you can be fined. Like that.
Bam bam!
Etretat doesn’t seem to have suffered much destruction during the war so a lot of its original architecture still stands including thatched roof homes, Victorian looking brick structures and timber sided medieval buildings.
It is apparently the beach town that Parisians go to if they have their own vehicle. When we left town, both sides of the highway entering town were lined up with parked cars stretching for at least a mile. Parisians, we were told, hate to pay for parking.
Deauville, towards the south on the other side of the Seine, is where Parisians without their own transportation go if they want to hit the beach since a trainline from Paris ends in Deauville. And Honfleur is where all Brits head to.
And it’s where we headed for lunch. But first, we crossed the Normandy Bridge spanning over the Seine River.
Honfleur is on the southside of the Le Havre Harbor and around 100 miles south of England across the English Channel. There must be ferry service direct from England as the place is bustling with British accented tourists and all the restaurants advertise “Fish and Chips – British Style”.
No matter how much England wants to be excluded from Europe and how it wants to be seen as some sort of remote island kingdom, at the end of the day it’s still closer and likely quicker to get to than many places in the Atlanta metro area from where we live in the suburbs.
But at least it has strange accents, y’all.
July 28, 2026
Back on board the ms Serene, Tauck’s newest riverboat, we were treated to a special dessert surprise. I don’t know what it was, but after all the bubbles burst into misty smoke bombs, everyone fell fast asleep.
<cue James Bond theme music>
July 29, 2026
It was a somber day. A long day. A hot day. And a D-Day pilgrimage day.
We started early at 8 and headed west towards the beaches of Normandy. A two hour bus ride from our river boat in Le Havre.
Our first stop, excluding the French Freeway Buc-ees filled with D-Day trinkets, was Pointe du Hoc Ranger Monument and Visitor Center situated halfway between Utah Beach and Omaha Beach.
Pointe du Hoc is a hilltop where Nazis mounted large cannons with a firing range of 12 miles. The guns could fire on both American landing zones as well as the Allied ships at sea. So, a group of US Rangers “cleaned up” the site a day before the invasion. Much to the rangers’ surprise, several cannons along the cliffs overlooking the English Channel were actually decoys fabricated from wooden poles.
Our next stop was Omaha Beach. A long sandy beach lined with beach houses, restaurants, bars and other beach businesses just as it was in 1944. I always thought Omaha Beach was undeveloped at the time but I found out otherwise. It’s basically a beach party town now as it was then.
I can only imagine what a killjoy it must have been to watch the Nazis goose stepping up and down the beach promenade for 4 long years while heiling Hitler. Maybe it’s the birthplace of the phrase, “hang 10”.
Anyhow, the beach is subject to twice daily large tidal surges of 10 to 20 feet so at times the beach can extend out into the channel by 100s of yards or be crashing against the sea wall next to the beachfront road. Timing the invasion had to take this into account.
From the beach, the land rises 100 feet or so to hilltops where Nazis positioned their troops and armaments. So, these were some of the factors that the Allied planners had to consider.
Fortunately, the Nazis were surprised by the invasion as they were expecting it further north near Calais, 100 miles away.
The D-Day invasion started on the morning of June 6, 1944, and consisted of 5 different landing zones along the Normandy coast. Two by American forces, two by British forces and one by Canadian forces. Many thousands of troops died in the attack but by the end of the first day, Allied forces had advanced to the hilltop off the beach where farms and villages were located.
From there, the struggle to liberate Europe began and within a year, it proved to be a successful strategy.
After our visit to Omaha Beach, Tauck arranged for lunch for us at a restored chateau now converted to a 5 star hotel. C’est bon!
Following lunch, we paid our respects to the fallen American soldiers by visiting the American Cemetery at Normandy. Over 11,000 soldiers are buried there on a bluff overlooking the deep cerulean-blue sea and golden sands.
Such a beautiful spot, except for that June morning in 1944, to be grateful for the efforts and sacrifices made to free the world of the Nazi madness.
Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.
July 29, 2026
A quiet sunset cruise as we sail away from Le Havre and Normandy. It’s been 84 years since that last summer of World War II when so many lost their lives protecting the world from fascism. But now the drums beat again.
“The next great war won’t arrive until everyone who remembers the last one is dead.” – Cormac McCarthy, Stella Maris
July 30, 2026
We are on our way back to Paris where our river boat cruise ends in two days.
We sailed all night and pulled up to the pier in Caudebec-en-caux. The world’s most boring French city. The Perry Como of Normandy.
It’s 9 o’clock in the morning and we headed out on our own for a self-guided tour. The sky was overcast and the air cool.
We crossed the sleepy riverside highway, a lone farm tractor rumbling towards us, and entered the medieval city center, a place with over a thousand years of history. Much of the city looks like it was built in the 1950s. Clearly a sign of fleeing Nazis with Allied troops on their heels.
In the center of the village is a church named Notre Dame. Apparently, the French have a short list of names from which to choose when naming churches. And like other churches we’ve seen on this visit, its steeple was covered with scaffolding, repairs underway.
Behind the church was a nice garden with a loud, swiftly flowing creek flowing to the river. Like everywhere in France, pots of growing petunias were mixed with vibrant green potato vines.
Around the corner was a Piggly-Wiggly grocery store open (Le Piggly-Wiggly in French). A sad and sparce vegetable stand outside beckoned us in but we resisted. Viva la résistance.
In another block we stopped to stare at the real estate signs showing local homes for sale. We found a nice Tudor style one for only €238,160 equivalent to $273,285. While small, 1,130 square feet, it looks like it has plenty of outdoor living space to compensate. And probably a good place for plenty of naps.
Of course, who knows what the cost of repairs and taxes are. Likely more than expected.
We headed back to the boat after an exhausting 3 block tour. A barbecue was being prepared on the upper deck for lunch. Grilled chicken and lamb, of which Mary had a little.
But before lunch, time for a nap. The sounds of Perry Como played from somewhere nearby.
July 30, 2026
In the afternoon, we climbed aboard our bus and headed out to visit an historic abbey in nearby Port Jumièges.
The abbey was originally built in the 600s and was used during the reign of Charlemagne as a jail for folks that “Charlie” didn’t like. Like the Duke of Bavaria and the duke’s son, Theo. Politics never changes.
Fast forward 100 years and you have the Vikings paying a visit and like all Viking visits, it ended in ruin and pillage. Not to mention the sacking. (Note to Self: Don’t invite Vikings for the next party).
After the locals recovered from their “Viking Party”, they cleaned the place up and rebuilt the abbey. And made it bigger.
Over the next many hundreds of years, famous folks came and went and the abbey thrived and grew when it wasn’t being knocked down and attacked during many wars with literally everyone around the area. I guess it must have been boring before everyone had iPhones with cat videos in their hands. People had nothing for entertainment other than wars.
Yet, the abbey continued to survive and thrive. At least until the French Revolution in the late 1700s when things REALLY changed, at least briefly. It seems the revolutionaries really, really didn’t like the church. So, they took the abbey and sold it to the highest bidder. The revolutionaries were big into selling stuff. You should see what they did at Versailles.
The new owner, from England, took one look at the abbey, still in good shape, and said to himself, “I can make that into a new house for myself”, and he disassembled parts and pieces and shipped it back to England and built something called Highcliffe Castle where, hopefully, he enjoyed many years.
Today, the remains (not ruins) of Jumièges Abbey are owned by the local town and it has been turned back into a major tourist destination with less wars.
So far.
July 31, 2026
Leaving the docks in Les Andelys, our next stop after an all-night sailing past Rouen, we headed up the hill to the castle, or fortress (I can’t remember what makes them one or the other) overlooking the Seine River.
We are about 60 miles west of Paris.
The castle marked the boundary between England and the Kingdom of France around 1200 and it was built by Richard the Lionheart, King of England.
From what I understood from our tour guide, remember my hearing is not so good, Richard grew up with Phillippe, who around this time was King of France. They were once buddies growing up.
Somehow they got into a tiff and before you could say “Jackie Robinson”, they were battling it out with each other using knights, killer rabbits and what-not and at the end of the day, King Phillippe won the tussle and enlarged the Kingdom of France, which was, in those days, mostly what you call today Metropolitan Paris.
Fast forward 800 plus years and you find us in a bus lumbering north towards La ferme des ruelles – Galmel Michel, an all-natural organic no-pesticides-at-all farm next to Tilly (not the famous ATM machines in Atlanta), France.
Michel gave a lecture in one of his barns festooned with a chandelier. At this point I suspect that all old wooden barns in France have chandeliers. It’s the French way.
Non?!
Michel started converting the farm in 2004 to an organic farm and stopped using chemicals and pesticides. He also started breaking up the fields into smaller patches bordered by trees and hedgerows. Overall, the farm covers 150 acres.
He eventually found that by bringing back the biodiversity, he could sustain his agricultural output naturally.
He had some setbacks, like when the mouse population exploded. He let the problem go without fighting it using today’s poisons or chemicals and found that hawks and herons moved in to control the problem naturally.
The soil at the beginning had few earthworms but years later a survey was done and the earthworm population was discovered to have grown significantly.
Now, how does one survey earthworms in France? Why, with mustard (presumably Grey Poupon) mixed with water.
But, of course.
They took the mix of mustard and water and poured it on the ground. The mustard is an irritant to the earthworms so they wiggle up and get counted.
Today, the farm is productive without the use of chemicals all due to bringing back the natural food chain.
Following the lecture we sampled his products including a variety of highly alcoholic apple juices, ciders and wines. Also his mustard, even though it is not recommended by earthworms.
August 1, 2026
WARNING: Pictures of flowers ahead. Lots and lots of flowers. Enter at your own risk.
Early morning, we left our boat in Vernon and headed to the nearby village of Giverny. The home of Claude Monet and his famous garden with the green bridge and water lilies. Tauck arranged for a private visit for us before the gardens open to the public at 9 AM.
Seven years ago, Teresa and I tried to visit one July afternoon but the line waiting to buy tickets was too long and we didn’t have the time or patience to wait. And besides, Paris was nearby and calling. Monet can wait.
Well, he waited and seven years later here we are again. But this time in advance of the soon to be big crowds of tourists.
Monet bought his property in Giverny following a successful and lucrative exhibition of his paintings in New York. Further sales allowed him to buy more property and expand the gardens to the other side of the highway which is where he built his green footbridge over the pond filled with lilies. A tunnel under the highway connects the gardens to Monet’s house and prevents tourists from becoming road-kill.
The gardens are as beautiful as the many paintings and photos show. What’s not seen are today’s conga-line of selfie picture taking tourists. The numbers of visitors makes for a good local economy but diminishes the experience of seeing the gardens, partly due to the fact that you are confined to narrow walkways. It’s likely that, like other overly popular destinations, in the future visitors will have to reserve a time slot for their visits.
Following the gardens we did a tour of the interior of Monet’s home filled with Impressionistic art masterpieces, all of them fake. I call it, “Impressions of Impressionism”.
And on the way out is the ubiquitous gift shop filled with all sorts of coffee table books and tchotchkes.
Once out of the museum, we visited the local museum. Museums seem to be a thing around here. Inside were more impressions of impressions and one real Monet painting, a painting of a weeping willow tree dipping into his lily pond.
Beautiful.
Finally, of course, came the shopping. We bought a horse named Clod.
August 2, 2026
We made it back to the Charles de Gaulle Airport for our early morning flight without any delays even though traffic on the Paris freeways was heavy. Finally airborne, we have eight hours of flight time until the real show begins. Getting our checked bags and getting back through immigrations and customs.
But, sometimes when you are seated next to a window, it pays to look outside. And this time, what did I see? A city floating in the clouds.
Mont Saint Michel.
August 3, 2026
Back home in Atlanta after 10 days in France. Looks like we caught a bad case of inspiration. Mr. Monet would be proud.
Go Van Gogh!
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