Tours

For friendly expertise to assist you in touring France at your own pace, contact DMI Tours.

 

French Antiques

The picturesque streets east of the museum, hold more artistic treasures—and these you can take home. In fact, I’m in search of an antique armoir from Normandy for my place.

In Rouen, half the pleasure is the search for antiques down these streets with their 15th to 18th century timbered houses. On the Rue Saint Romaine, I discovered Max Tetlin antiques.

To learn more about French antiques, I invited Jean Jacques Nivoliez from French-antique-dealers.com to stop by.

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For links to French antique dealers, visit www.french-antique-dealers.com.

 

Monet at Giverny

An easy day trip from either Rouen or Paris are the famed Monet gardens and his house at Giverny.

Monet came to live here in 1883, his career just poised on the brink of fame. It had been a long hard struggle with rejection, abject poverty and personal tragedies.

Monet came to view his grounds at Giverny as an unending source of subjects for his art. He hired gardeners to keep different parts of the garden in bloom throughout the year.

Monet dammed a nearby stream to create his water lily pond. He painted more than 250 versions of the pond, obsessed with portraying the scene in different light and atmosphere. Monet strove to record the world as impressions of the eye, divorced from all he knew about the subject. "Forget what you see before you," he said, "a tree, a house, a field, and simply think: here’s a small blue square, there a yellow streak, and paint what appears before you."

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There are no Monet originals here, but the gift shop sells reproductions. For more information about Monet's home at Giverny, visit www.giverny.org.

 

Manoir D'Apreval

Apples and Normandy go hand in hand. Hard cider and apple brandy called Calvados have been made here since the 1500s.

At the Manoir d’Apreval, you can witness the centuries old brandy making process and taste the high quality cavaldos and ciders. Agathe Letellier told me about the estate.

(soundbite...)

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Manoir Apreval Calvados is aged in oak from 2 to 30 years. For more information about Manoir d'Apreval, visit www.apreval.com.

 

Le Pavé d'Auge Restaurant

All over France, you can discover world class restaurants tucked away in small towns or in the countryside. At the Michelin celebrated Pave d’Auge in Beuvron, I am in for a treat. Chef Jerome Bansard whips up a simple Norman dish—chicken cooked with apples, apple cider and fresh cream.

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An excellent listing of restaurants is available at www.jre.net. For more information about Le Pavé d'Auge restaurant, visit
www.normandy-tourism.org.

Interested in making the chicken dish yourself? Go to www.recipehound.com. Or, check out a website featuring more french recipes for serving chicken.

 

D-Day Beaches

On June 6, 1944, another invasion on these sands altered the course of history: World War II’s D-Day.

The long Normandy beaches provided the Allies with a perfect opportunity to invade continental Europe and take the occupying Germans by surprise.

Nothing about Omaha beach today recalls the vast carnage of that day. While many of the other Allied beach landings went relatively well, Omaha proved deadly. Seasick, heavily laden men slogged through the surf. Many drowned; many were more cut down by a wall of German fire. More than 2000 Americans died on Omaha beach that day. Nonetheless, by the time darkness fell, the invasion was a success.

The story of the war and D-day are movingly told at the Caen Memorial, just outside the city of Caen and not far from the beaches. Exhibits along a spiraling tunnel depict the history of Nazi Germany, and the inevitable march to war. In the main theatre, a dramatic split screen film shows footage shot from both the American and German perspectives as the D-Day invasion unfolds.

Interactive, high tech and engaging, the Memorial involves the visitor in the heroism, sacrifice and the great sorrow of war.

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For more information about D-Day, visit www.normandiememoire.com.

 

Mont Saint Michel

Of all the sights in Normandy, one stands alone as the most awe inspiring and mysterious: the abbey of Mont St Michel.

For centuries, pilgrims toiled to pay homage to Saint Michael, the powerful archangel who weighs souls in heaven. Pilgrims crossed the bay, falling victim at times to the rushing tides and quicksand. The church bell tolled to warn of the advancing tide, which, people claimed “came as quickly as a galloping horse.”

Legend has it that the archangel appeared to the local bishop, St. Aubert in 708 and demanded that he build a shrine on this site.

In the 11th century, the Benedictine Abbey was built here and Mont St Michel became a center of scholarship, known for its beautiful illuminated manuscripts. The Abbey is austere, but the views down to the bay are thrilling.

In the 13th century, the dramatic Gothic wingof Mont St. Michel, La Merveille, was added on the north side of the mount. The abbey church is especially evocative during the daily noon mass. The cloisters are located on the top floor of La Mervielle with views to the sea. During the French revolution, the government seized churches, and Mont St Michel became a jail for political prisoners.

Today, Mont St Michel is the most popular tourist destination in France. If you want a certain amount of solitude and mystery at the abbey, visit in the off-season in late spring or early fall.

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Mont Saint Michel is most dramatic if you arrive about 2 hours before high tide. For a searchable tide table, visit www.ot-montsaintmichel.com and click in the box "Select the month."

 

• French Antiques
• Monet at Giverny
• Manoir d'Apreval
• Le Pavé d'Auge restaurant
• D-Day Beaches
• Mont Saint Michel