Off With Their Heads: Ten Reasons To Be Ambivalent About Visiting Versailles

1. You get to ride to the Palace of Versailles with a bus driver who claims to have relatives in Sleepy Hollow.

2. You must clutch your purse to your breast because of the professional pickpockets.

3. There is enough gold to jump start the economy of a third world nation - think Haiti.

4. The housekeepers at the Hall of Mirrors never will run out of work, only Windex.

5. The decor is too garish even for Donald Trump.

6. To this day there are 121 rooms and only one is a bathroom.

7. Louis XIV said, "Apres moi, le deluge," and he wasn't kidding. When it rains at Versailles, you'll hydroplane to certain death on the cobblestone entrance.

8. Marie Antoinette never said, "Let them eat cake." She really said, "Marrying Louis was a big mistake."

9. After competing with injured and disabled tourists for the two or three available wheelchairs,

10. and suffering the indignities of rude tourists from every continent, Deborah prepares for the guillotine. Regrettably, we experienced our own Reign of Terror.

The Woman Who Walked Up a Mountain and Came Down a Hill

Duckling for Cover

The swans before they "scatter wheeling in great broken rings"

Cottage along the Seine in Les Andelys




Walking down the hill into town



View of the white cliffs (No, Dorothy. We're not in Dover.)



Part of the ruins of the Chateau Gaillard, a fortress built in 1196 by Richard the Lion Heart to keep watch on the river Seine and to protect the city of Rouen from the French.

Over-Realmed




I must have forgotten I wasn't in Paris anymore when I hiked to the Chateau. In 90 degree heat I wore black from head to toe - tres chic mais tres stupide. Deborah got a pair of drop earrings made by a local jeweler that resembled the mini-versions of the famous women in Modigliani paintings. A great day in a lovely village, and I got some much-needed exercise, too.

In France They Kiss on Main Street

Preparing for Bastille Day in Rouen
(Kerplunk on Steroids)








Much less formal than Paris, the city of Rouen is a lively, beautiful place. Its narrow streets and alleys are filled with antique stores, art galleries and cafes that reminded us of New Orleans, sans the wrought iron. The parks and squares teemed with people, especially teenagers on parole from school and young couples very much at ease with public displays of affection.

We spent some time in the Cathedral Notre Dame, a gothic structure whose facade was immortalized by Claude Monet in his paintings (Please see our postcards when we return since my battery died there and had to be recharged.). We took the "little train that could" up and down the historic streets and observed the many bullet-nicked and gouged landmarks, but the most interesting drive-by was the Church of Saint Joan of Arc, a modern minimalist building. It is said that the church's architecture symbolizes the search for absolute geometric purity. Perhaps it symbolizes the acuity, exactness and certitude of Joan of Arc herself.

"My father always told me that we would go to France/We'd go boating on the Seine and I would learn to dance." Joni Mitchell