It was an early start today for some of the housemates as today was the day that Victoria & Oliver and Briony & Thai and their families were departing for Disneyland Paris. Poppy has been looking forward to this more than anything else and can’t wait to see the dollies [It’s a Small World], the pirates and to shoot Buzz Light-hero. Oliver has planned every meal in each fast food outlet down to the precise minute of the day and Joey just smiles and says “yea”. I’m sure that they will have a really good three days.
As it was Sunday it was the day to visit some churches with the first stop the pretty market town of St.-Pierre-Sur-Dives.
The 11th century market hall [shown here behind Sylvia] was completely destroyed in the war but was faithfully reconstructed using the same techniques with not one nail being used in the entire building. On Mondays the market is famous for selling live chickens,ducks and turkeys , a good reason for visiting on a Sunday!
The picturesque town hall sits on a flower lined square backing onto the Benedictine Abbey that was the principle reason for the visit. Unfortunately a service was in progress when we arrived so we were not able to view inside. We may come back another day as it’s not too far from the cottages.
The next stop was to be one of the main centres of the region Lisieux, a town where thousands of pilgrims flock each year. The Basilica sits high on a hill overlooking the town and is quite magnificent.
We parked the car in the town and walked up the hill towards the church passing shops selling medals and candles . The basilica is very modern only being consecrated in the 1950s but the artwork inside is absolutely beautiful.
The basilica is dedicated to the life and works of St. Therese who lived in town for almost all her short life becoming one of the most important saints within the catholic church. After leaving the basilica we followed the walking trial around the town which took us past another church…….
…….eventually ending up at the cathedral,
The others had decided to visit a chateau in the morning and as it was now approaching lunch time we thought that it would be a good time to follow suit. The short trip from Lisieux took us down some narrow lanes before arriving at the chateau St-German-De-Livet, which was closed for lunch!!
The grounds were open however and this gave us the opportunity to take some lovely photos of the outside of the so-called “floating chateau”. We therefore decided that no internal viewing could surpass these views and moved onto our next destination. Two French women who sat outside and informed us that the site was closed were most perplexed when we drove off without partaking in the organised trip.
After a fairly long drive up and down some steep roads we arrived at our final destination of the day the cheese making town of Pont-L’Eveque. The architecture in the town is made up of the typical timber framed buildings many of which have survived the war.
The principal reason for visiting this town was to sample the local made cheese but as was the story for most of our day, no where was open to buy any. A short walk through a flea market followed by a croque monsieur for lunch completed the visit, and of course there was another church.
A photo on the bridge to prove our visit and then a leisurely drive back to the cottages.
Once again the weather had been splendid so on our return we had a small swim and prepared for the evening meal, a much smaller affair tonight as we were missing seven of the party. After dinner Patrick attempted to teach us how to play Mah-Jong using a set handed down to him by his Grand-Father. I think we managed it in the end. The evening was completed by a geeky post on Oliver’s facebook page confirming that they arrived safely at Disney.
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