We slept last night docked at Vernon, part of the Normandy region of France. Yesterday we spent the morning at Conflans, where the Seine, the Epte, and the Oise rivers all meet. I loved our short stay in Paris, and really did not want to leave, but this area is so very beautiful! Swans and Mallard duck families swim outside my window. The sun is shining, the grass is green, flowers are blooming. Such is the beauty of this part of the River Seine.

   We drove a bit to reach Auvers-sur-Oise, one of the loveliest towns I've ever seen. The golden early spring weather enhanced my impressions, and that is an apt word, as this is where the Impressionists came to create their works of art. This is where Van Gogh lived his last days, creating 78 paintings in 70 days in an attempt to calm his troubled mind; Auvers-sur-Oise is also where he is buried, beside his beloved brother Theo. We saw the house where he lived, and we also saw his grave, decorated with a plastic sunflower some modern day devotee had planted there. Unappreciated in his time, his art became valuable only well after his death. It is now fairly common knowledge that Vincent van Gogh drank absinthe, causing him to become crazy, but also causing epilepsy, and here is what I did not know before: he also drank turpentine, and chewed on paint chips as he worked. These terrible habits all led to thoughts of suicide, his mind becoming tortured over time. As the world now knows, he was a brilliant artist, but a very unhappy soul. Van Gogh was only 37 when he shot himself.

   Besides its beauty, one thing that is so very well done in Auvers-sur-Oise is the pairing of Van Gogh's individual paintings next to what he actually saw. His "City Hall" is beside the Auvers-sur-Oise City Hall; his painting of a winding stone staircase is very near to that actual staircase; his painting of fields with walking trails cutting through the high grass is next to the wheat fields in the upper part of town. One can see the landscapes that Vincent van Gogh saw; it is easy to follow his footsteps. He died in 1890. Such a sad life; what a loss for the whole world.   

   This is another place I could live for awhile, but by 1PM we were sailing again, leaving elegant and exquisite Auvers-sur-Oise behind, heading to Vernon. When we arrived the evening's entertainment was meeting a war-time bride. This lady will turn 90 this year; she came onboard to show us photos of her posing with American GIs, and to tell us stories about life before, during, and after WWII, what it was like being young in France back then. I think there are only three of us here who are baby-boomers, who were not even born until years after WWII ended, so many--or most--of my traveling companions also have memories of war time. But no one onboard lived in France during the war; no one else was removed from their house so Germans could take it over; no one knew what it was like to live in Europe in the first half of the 20th century. Mrs. Francine Nelson, soon to be 90 years old, told us true stories of her life and living in France during WWII. This was much better than reading history in books!

    One footnote to this part of my story is that on our visit to the Caen Memorial Peace Museum, Numi, a lady on our tour who we all knew was born in Japan, shared that she was 6 years old when Nagasaki was bombed, and that she was living there with her mother at that time. Several of us looked at her, somewhat disbelieving, and finally, stumbling over our questions, asked her how she could have survived. Her husband, who is Chinese but was born in California, explained that Nagasaki is very hilly, and her family lived behind hills that protected them from the blast and fallout. What a piece of living history we had right within our own group! By the way, this lady, who is 76 years old, looks about 60 and is one of the most active and energetic travelers on our tour. She is obviously healthy, and always in good spirits too. How lucky we were to hear her story!   

   On Sunday we saw only a very small part of Giverny. It is mid-March, and the gardens are not yet blooming, and most museums don't open until April 1. I do wish we had stopped longer, to walk through Monet's gardens even if they were not yet in bloom. His house is very large, long enough to have accommodated his 8 children. It is painted pink, with green shutters, oddly attractive, all closed on this lovely, sunny March morning. But even during this early, cold spring weather, the bushes and trees lining the roadway were alive with color, vividly conjuring up the many paintings of his gardens in my mind. Even in March Giverny is beautiful.

   Our bus then stopped at an apple farm that has been in the family for over 150 years; Chris and Anne alone process 400 acres filled with ancient apple trees to produce apple juice, cider, vinegar, an apple aperitif, Calvados, and Pommeau. Except for the vinegar and Pommeau we were invited to taste them all. Their pure apple juice was my favorite; they use no preservatives or artificial anything in their making of these delicious products. Not used to drinking hard liqueurs, I took only one sip of the Calvados before handing my glass to a friend who loved it and wanted more. But I did buy a bottle of their Aperitif Normand, the perfect gift to take home from Giverny for my husband Bill.  

   Sunday afternoon, while many travelers were resting, Jan joined me in an exploratory walk around ancient Vernon. In the waning days of the 12th century the then King of France, Philippe Auguste, built the castle here. Several parts of many ruins still stand, but the tower keep was locked, so we couldn't climb the 100 steps to its top. But we did enjoy our time strolling through medieval alleyways, and into the Collegiale Notre Dame, the large church dominating the town square; building it had begun in the 13th century but was only completed during the 16th. Jan and I did peek inside, but it was still Sunday morning so a service was in progress and I was carrying baguettes that we had bought (as an exercise in learning to speak a little more French), so I quickly backed out, thinking that taking baguettes into a cathedral was probably not very polite--at least during a service.