Day 4  The Seine River to Rouen

We had breakfast on the boat an settled into a day of cruising down the river.  Our destination was Rouen, and we were expected to arrive at 1:00 p.m.  We were in one of the most scenic parts of the Seine River valley, so we settled on the upper deck and spent the morning watching the scenery go by and visiting with fellow travelers.  After a hectic Day 3, we were glad for the leisurely pace.

The Seine River flows quietly.  The water is not clear, but it is not muddy and doesn't show signs of heavy pollution.  We saw an abundance of water fowl along the river -- ducks, swans, terns, and many other birds.  We saw people fishing and even swimming and water skiing in the river.  The river banks are vegetated in most places; we saw no muddy banks anywhere.  This part of France has rolling wooded hills, which provided a lush, verdant landscape for us to look at.  Occasionally there were outcrops of white limestone on the hillsides.

We saw several small towns near the river. These were picturesque with old churches and other buildings, but they also had an assortment of newer houses and other structures.  In the vicinity of these towns, there were many houses that faced the river providing scenery that sometimes looked as though it was a painting by a good landscape artist.  Some of the houses could be called "chateaus" in that they were massive houses with many architectural features.

We saw some industrial operations along the river, but these were not ugly or even intrusive on the beauty of the landscape.  There was a substantial amount of river traffic -- barges, tankers, and container boats that passed by silently.

At 10:00, we met out appointment with the Captain of the boat for a tour of his wheelhouse and an explanation of how he "drives" the boat.  The boat uses radar to see other boats and obstructions and the configuration of the river bottom.  He has controls that allow him to maneuver the boat through narrow channels, locks, and by other boats with hardly more than the touch of his fingers.  The Captain was a young man (32) who had grown up on his parents freight-hauling boat.  He said he had been "driving" boats since he was 5 and had been Captain of a boat since he was 21.

Judy and Dwight with Captain Davy

At noon, we had a "Taste of Normandy" lunch on the upper deck.  We had samples of pastries, cheeses, and a host of other offerings that were representative of the foods of that part of France.

After we arrived at Rouen, we went on a guided walking tour of the central city.  Rouen is a city of about 400,000 and is highly industrialized.  But the city is also very old and has retained more old buildings than I have seen anywhere else.  We saw blocks of structures housing businesses on the lower floors and  residents on upper floors that had been originally built in the 14th Century and every century up to  today.  Many of these buildings were half-timber buildings.  These are build of a framework of heavy wood that is filled in with rocks, mud, and plaster.  These are usually painted with the wood being one color and the plaster another.  These were even somewhat color-coded, because in some centuries, only certain colors were available.  For example, ones with the wooden beams painted red were indicative of those built in the 14th and 15th centuries.

Note the lower floor business in a 16th Century Building

On our tour, we visited another cathedral.  This one is also known as Notre Dame and is considered Rouen's most significant architectural feature.  It was built from the 1200's to the 1700's as is the case of many of Europe's cathedrals -- they weren't built with cranes and prefabricated materials.   It is a large gothic structure and has the tallest spire in France (490 feet).  The spire is made of cast iron that is woven into intricate but structural designs.  The inside of this cathedral was spacious with the area behind the altar being almost as large as the nave.  It has many small and two large chapels in this area behind the altar.  This church was well-lighted with many window (that were possible because of the design of the flying buttresses provided wall support that allowed openings in the walls for windows without weakening the building).  Many of the windows had beautiful stained glass designs, but some of the windows were only a frosted glass.  This church had been damaged during World War II and some of the original stained glass windows had been destroyed and had not been replaced. 

Rouen is also the place where Joan of Arc had been tried and burned at the stake.  There was a very modern church that had been built to honor her.  The church was built on the ruins of an old church that had been destroyed and looked strangely out-of-place among the buildings from the middle ages.  But it had one complete wall of stained glass that was from a variety of other churches that no longer existed.  Seeing this wall eased my feeling that this church did not belong in Rouen.

After the tour, we walked some more looking at the city and then made our way back to the boat for dinner.