Because the flight was an overnight flight from Chicago, it was the 13th when we landed at Charles de Gaulle airport just outside of Paris. Tabitha was still asleep when we landed, so I had to carry her. We didn’t have to go through customs (no one did), which Ben and I found strange, but we did have to go through the passport line. Because Tabitha was passed out, we were actually taken to the front of the line, which was unexpected and really nice. Tabitha has her first passport stamp now. What a world traveler. We eventually got our bags and went to the Avis counter to rent our car. That line seemed to take forever. Ben purchased a sim card for our phone so we had a French phone number and could use it in France just in case. We got some milk for Tabitha, which ended up being some type of formula or a prepared type of milk for I think up to 3 years old. By the end of the trip we just used this milk to make her cereal, but in the beginning we were trying to get her to drink this just like regular whole milk. 95% of France’s milk is not fresh, but at room temperature (until opened) in a box or a plastic bottle. Anyway, so I really hadn’t wanted an American car to drive around France. Mostly out of security reasons, but also I had wanted to try something different. We ended up with a diesel Ford Focus, which got great gas mileage, but an American car. Oh well. We hooked up our GPS, we had bought the Garmin France maps for our trip, and headed northwest to Giverny, the location of Monet’s Garden. The drive to Giverny was pretty uneventful. The French countryside is beautiful. There were tons of golden fields, which we were later told were canola.
I loved all the little French towns, but the narrow roads were scary at times. When we arrived at Monet’s garden we were pretty hungry. Tabitha had some baby food and we both bought a sandwich at a place just outside the garden. We had ham and cheese on a baguette and it tasted so good. This was just the beginning of our love with sandwiches in France. There was a little bit of a line to get into the gardens and Tabitha kept herself entertained by walking up and down curbs. Here are Tabitha and Ben waiting.
Once inside the garden, we let Tabitha loose. She enjoyed the gravel, trying to pick the flowers and smelling them. She didn’t really get close enough to smell the flowers, but she would get down sort of close and make the smelling noise. Very cute. The garden itself was really pretty. These were the gardens that had inspired Monet and it was easy to see why they were such a great inspiration. Monet had lived here (we got to tour his house as well) up until his death. There were two parts to the garden, the part right behind his house and then a section behind that which included a Japanese bridge and small ponds that at the right time of the year would be teaming with water lilies. Unfortunately they were not blooming when we were there, but many other flowers were. I really enjoyed the huge tulips that were blooming.
There was still a lot of the day left, so we continued to head northwest to the port town of Honfleur. Once we arrived (after a few wrong turns and many narrow cobblestoned streets)
we looked around an old church (St. Catherine’s) and the harbor area (Vieux Basin). The inside of St. Catherine’s looked like a ship turned upside down.
It was very dark inside and was not very ornate. The most interesting part was the ceiling, which really looked like the hull of a ship. We then walked around the Vieux Basin, which is part of the harbor there in Honfleur.
It is very picturesque and was just neat to look at. Tabitha tried her first crepe here and she loved it. We let her walk along the cobblestoned streets and she had fun watching the people and the dogs.We didn’t stay in Honfleur too long as we still needed groceries before we got to our gite. We went south and stopped at a Carrefour in the town of Orbec. Being tired and disoriented, we probably spent way too much time in this grocery store. We bought breakfast stuff, sandwich stuff, diapers wipes, veggies and snacks. Eventually we got out of there and went to our gite which was very cute and just a few minutes outside the town of Orbec in the country. It was part of a British family’s home that was sectioned off. It had a separate entrance and felt completely separate from their house, even though it was attached. It was two floors with the bedroom on the top floor and the family/kitchen and bathroom on the first floor. It had everything we needed to include a washing machine (but no drier). We ate some dinner and then went to bed. Tabitha went to sleep quickly, but then had a hard time in the middle of the night, which was to be expected as we were now 6 hours ahead of our normal time.
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