Tag Archives: Normandy

Photo Of The Day — The Carrot Carrying Man in Normandy

Just in case you wondered about those HUGE sacks of carrots in my Monday Market post, here’s a man hefting one of them across the square towards his car.

So when I wondered aloud if they’re for animals or people — Mark commented, ‘One would think that he’s a man with a horse or two!’

Carrot sack toting man at weekly market in rural Normandy.

Monday Market in Rural France

One of the joys in living in Europe is the quality of markets — no, not supermarkets (and those are frequently quite delightful, too!) — regional weekly markets where the products are straight from the fields or cheesemaker or butcher or fishmonger into your shopping basket. AND they are picturesque as well!

Here are a few scenes from our Monday market inside and outside the medieval market hall in Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives in Calvados, Normandy, France. Enjoy!

Fruit & veg including HUGE sacks of carrots at the Monday Market.

Market vendors outside the medieval hall.

Feathered friends and pretty plants.

Shopping baskets (yes — I’m going to buy a new one!) and flowering plants.

And finally — the clothing on offer may not be to our taste — but someone must want it!

A variety of clothing is sold at the Monday market.

From AU to the UK to the EU in 5 weeks!

I’m tired just thinking about it — but we have gone from Australia to the UK to France in the very short space of 5 weeks. Seriously — whew!

We don’t bounce back energy-wise as fast as we did 20+ years ago — so we were well into Week 2 in England at Mark’s parents’ house before we started to shed SOME of the jet-lag. But even when we first arrived in France in the 3rd week of November, we were still exhausted.

Once we had the shopping and car insurance and ferry reservations and so forth sorted out, we drove in the wind and rain to Portsmouth to take the night ferry to Caen. I had booked a cabin so we could get some sleep, but the staff hadn’t finished cleaning the rooms when we arrived, so we ended up getting very few hours of shut-eye.

Waiting in a long and very slow line to board the ferry.

Waiting for our cabin to be cleaned in the blue-light disco.

Arriving in France, we drove through persistent rain towards Caen and then south to the town of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives and onward to the nearby village where we will be living for the next several months as Mark does a large renovation project.

The house was built over several centuries — but the oldest section is from the 1400s. And the part we are living in — the red brick section — is from the 1800s. We even have a resident mouser named (badly!) Caramel who SHOULD be named Rocky because he’s such a sturdy bruiser of a cat. However (ahem!) — he has now adopted Mark and he follows him around like a puppy. So much for the cat’s stand-offish reputation!

The Normandy renovation project.

Mark inside the renovation project.

Mark’s new playmate — the cat in residence.

The town of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives is quite stunning and given the fact that they were occupied by the German army during World War II — a remarkable amount of truly old and lovely buildings are intact.

Every Monday morning, there is a large local market that takes place both inside the medieval market hall (another post about that coming soon!) and in the nearby street and huge parking lot. The range of fresh produce, cheese, wine, meat, seafood, and more was a wonderful surprise.

The packed Monday market in Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives.

Inside the historic medieval market hall at Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives.

Rooflines show the overlapping time periods of the town.

Leaning against a wall of the cloister, a statue awaits restoration of the abbey in Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives.

And finally — a hello from our next door neighbours on ALL sides — the lovely cows of Normandy. I’ll be back with more slices of life-in-France in the next few days. Enjoy!

The pretty cows in the fields next door.

Photo Of The Day: Up The Stairs & Into The Fog

There are days in Normandy when the weather is less than sunny and bright and the fog rolls off the ocean into the seacoast towns.

Today’s picture of the day in black and white is a simple shot — up a set of stairs that are clad in the same cobblestone as the streets below and into the bright but strange light of the fog.

Enjoy!

Up the stairs in Granville, a historic seaside town in Normandy, and into the fog at the top of the stairs.

Up the stairs in Granville, a historic seaside town in Normandy, and into the fog beyond. B&W

Photo Of The Day: The Tourist Train in Bayeux, Normandy, France

As I mentioned in yesterday’s photo essay, Bayeux is both charming and VERY easily walkable. But apparently some people don’t want to ramble around the cobblestone streets discovering fabbo little photo ops — or maybe they just have tired feet, eh?

The local tourism board has sorted that out then with this Tourist Train that departs from the Bayeux Cathedral and rolls you along in comfort though the streets of this very pretty town in northern France.

The tourist train in Bayeux, a lovely town in the Normandy region of France.

Back To Bayeux

In several previous posts, I showed you some glimpses of the glorious Bayeux Cathedral, the outside of the Bayeux Tapestry building, and some of the wonderful gargoyles and grotesques on the exterior of the very ornate cathedral.

Today we are just having a bit of a walk around the town itself. It is quite lovely, very walkable size-wise, and is blessed to still have rather a lot of the original architecture since it was less impacted by World War II than most of the Normandy countryside.

The charming streets of Bayeux, a very pretty, historic, and walkable town in Normandy, France.

People walking down a small cobbled street in the shopping district of Bayeux in Normandy, France on a bright and sunny day.

Looking down a narrow one way street in Bayeux, Normandy, France towards the 11th Century medieval cathedral at the end of the block.

Close-up details of the upper third of the dark red doors of the Bayeux Cathedral.

A poignant war memorial on a side street in Bayeux, Normandy, France. As a French soldier is shot and begins to fall, the young boy takes the weapon and will carry on.

Apologies for the return of the slightly larger watermarks again. I discovered several of my images being used on a German website where the person in question posted 3 of my images and claimed that they were his vacation pictures from Paris! Obviously the fact that they were all watermarked (and he cut that part off) and there is a COPYRIGHT notice posted in both my side bar and at the bottom of each page or post made no difference to this man.

After making direct contact with the person and receiving no response, I notified their ISP about their use of my image without payment or attribution. I gave them a link so that they could see that they were indeed my pictures and I told them that I had contacted the person and suggested that they just pay the bill for using the images.

The person in question apparently decided to ignore the issue, even after being contacted by me and by the ISP. So thankfully the ISP stepped in and the man’s site is no longer active. Good! It’s rather scandalous that people continue to troll the internet and use other people’s images as their own — but I am VERY PROACTIVE about pouncing when I discover that sort of blatant theft!

A Wistful Farewell To Normandy

Quick photo for you today whilst I am editing another book. This is a shot of Mark by the seaside in St. Martin de Brehal — saying a wistful goodbye to Normandy in April before heading to Paris and Brussels the following day for a short holiday.

We lived for long periods of time in 2011 and 2012 in both Normandy and the Midi-Pyrenees and we continue to love both places for very different reasons.

There was always something heart-tugging about the energy of Normandy, by the seaside especially, and our last few months there were hard to document photographically. We both still miss it — in my case, every single day.

Saying goodbye to the Normandy seaside

A Wanderful Life

The Neverending Journey