A quick loop to Bruges, Etretat, Honfleur and Giverney

Judy's cousin Tom and wife, Peggy, arrived on Saturday. We let them rest a bit, then had lunch at our favorite Crepe restaurant, Crepe Suzette (no kidding). As it was market day, we decided to buy our dinner from the woman who sells beef bourgignon, paella and choucrute. We bought choucrute by the number of people eating and added a variety of franks and sausages to satisfy everyone. Our friend, Jo, arrived the same day so we invited her for dinner. There was plenty for her to take back to her apartment for a few more meals.

Early on Sunday morning we took the metro to Charles de Gaulle/Etoile and walked to the car rental. Eurocar was in an underground parking lot near the metro station. After signing my life away, we drove out of the parking garage and took the highway to the north on our way to Bruges. 

Bruges is a beautiful, small, historic town on the Belgian border with France. It is famous for its canals and medieval architecture. Here is the Bell Tower from inside its courtyard. It is the main building on the city square.

The canals flow through the town and there are many small bridges that cross it again and again. Here is a view from one of the bridges. 

 The town was very crowded as it was a Sunday and a beautiful day. Here are a few of the tourists walking along one of the canals. The main square was just jammed with people.

 Judy did a great job finding lodging for this trip. Here is our hotel, Le Duc de Bourgogne, on the canal. It had a great restaurant where we ate dinner and had a terrific breakfast the next morning. Getting to the hotel was quite a challenge. The roads are tiny and they were mobbed with people. But we made it without killing anyone but still had to drive to a parking lot nearby.

Here is the hotel across the canal from our room. The building on the right is the one that Colin Farrell jumped from in the movie, "In Bruges". We love that movie. 

After our breakfast the next morning, we dragged our luggage to the underground parking nearby, found our car and made our way out of Bruges without and accident. We were on our way to Etretat.

Etretat is a charming little village along the coast where Monet painted some of his most iconic landscapes. The cliffs of Etretat. We grabbed a quick lunch on the road when we filled up with gas and wound our way to the coast. At one point we could see the English Channel in the distance near Calais.

This is a great view looking relatively to the north

And here is the classic cliffs in the other direction. This was the afternoon shot with the sun behind the cliff. I looked for a place to get a photo from the other side but couldn't find access to the ocean.

This was a quick stop as we still had to get to Honfleur, only about an hour away. Judy outdid herself again with the BandB she found run by a nice Scottish couple. Here she is in the breakfast room. The eggs were fresh as their free range chickens lay eggs around the yard.

 I really love Honfleur. It is always on my list of places to visit. It was a bit cold once the sun went down but we were still able to get a few iconic photos.

Looking across the "bassin"with the house controlling the locks on the right and the steeple of St Catherine in the background.

 And I love this view with the reflections across the basin. What a spot.

From Honfleur, we set out for Paris with a stop at Giverney. Monet's house and garden had just opened the previous weekend so I didn't expect too much in the garden. However, they had been busy planting annuals and taking care of the perennials so that there was a lot of color in the gardens.

Monet's house was in great shape. It looked like a lot of the trim had just been painted as that beautiful green color was shining off of all the rails and shutters. 

The dining room was in fine form.

After crossing under the road, we came across the 

Japanese Bridge and its reflection. The water lilies had not appeared yet, but it is still a beautiful spot.

Here is one of the permanent residents of Giverney.

Coincidentally, there was an exhibit at the Musee d'Impressionisme, next door, that compared some of Monet's work with Jean Francis Auburtin. They were painting some of the same scenes, although years apart. Can you guess which one belongs to which artist?

 Hint, they are in alphabetical order...

Here's a group of very young art lovers with their docent actively talking about the paintings on the wall. I always love seeing kids in the museums.

From there we drove back to Paris where we got involved in a horrendous traffic jam. We finally managed to squeeze our way to a street on the right and, after several illegal U-turns in front of police officers, we found ourselves on the street with the car rental. Tom spotted an entrance to a parking lot and we drove underground for a bit and found the Europcar office. It turns out the President of China was in town and all roads were blocked.