Wednesday December 1st- We were due to be in Boulogne Sur Mer for the night, but seeing that it was only a 90 minute drive we decided to use our day for sightseeing as much as possible, even if it was 25 degrees. We checked out, put all of our stuff in our car and went to the Beaux Arts Museum for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, all of us were too tired to really appreciate it (are we museumed out or did our staying up too late reading sap our energy?) but we did have a couple clear moments of enjoyment: the kids found some sensory guides for blind people and enjoyed feeling Braille art (?!), we all loved the central room filled with large-scale history and myth painting. The Rouen museum has a wonderful Monet collection, as Monet’s home was very close and the Rouen cathedral was his subject for many paintings. We also loved viewing the many portraits of Joan of Arc who was burned at the stake in Rouen after, barely out of her teens, commanding France’s armies, winning a major victory and being captured. After a wonderful lunch we got on the road… extremely pleased with our car’s heater.
Leaving Rouen
Work of the famous painter of the revolution, Jacques-Louis David (before he became Napoleon's official court painter)
One of Monet's Rouen Notre Dame Cathedral impressionist works
On our way to Boulogne Sur Mer we stopped in Amiens, home to the largest cathedral in France. The night before I’d read about a laser light showing for the month of December (first night tonight!) in the church square so our goal was to find something to do for 4 hours in Amiens before it began. It ended up being harder to do than we anticipated because we were too cold to do much walking. So we ate. First a coffee stop, then a bakery stop, then finally a dinner at the French McDonald’s, Quickie, which is much better than McDonalds. And they serve espresso.
The light show was not as exciting as we’d pictured, but still incredible. In the 20 degree weather with gently falling snowflakes the entire western façade of the cathedral was lit up to show what it would have looked like 600 years ago. And I had understood that gothic churches were painted, but had no idea that the colors were so vivid! We get so used to seeing the white, bleached out sculptures surrounding the doors but when Mary’s robe is shown to be shining gold, and Jesus’ robe a vivid red, it does add a new, more exciting dimension to the church experience. After 20 minutes of the show (with commentary in French) we decided that we couldn’t take the cold any longer (what happened to our Alaskan blood!?) so we left before the English commentary came on and got on the road for the one hour drive to Boulogne-Sur-Mer where we checked into a generic hotel near the port and got a good night’s sleep…
First dessert....
Then dinner...
And finally, the light show....
The sacred labyrinth of 1228- an ancient meditative tool (prayer)- walking the black lines while praying (and kneeling for some) is one of the substitutes for traveling to Israel.
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