Countryside in Normandy

We also learned that Normandy is the home of apples, apple orchards, apple tarts, apple butter, apple brandy, apple cider…apple everything. Besides apple orchards, there are wild apple trees sprouting up eveyrywhere. This time of year is harvest season so the trees were simply loaded with apples. We saw more than one cow craning his neck to pull an apple off the branch, too!

So, upon leaving Rouen, our meandering path took us past chateaux and apple orchards…











…a quaint little town named Lyons-le-Foret, with, yes, more half timber houses, and a fab-u-lous antique shop, where we almost became the owner of a grandfather clock if only we could have figured a way to get it to Germany…







…and the ruins of an ancient abbey, Abbaye de Jumieges, which was founded in 654, plundered by the Vikings in 841, rebuilt by William Longswood, Duke of Normandy in 940, and finally consecrated in 1067. Sadly, the French Revolution forced the remaining 16 monks to leave but the remains are rather interesting.