Rouen to CDG

We decided not to spend 15 euro on  scrambled eggs and dry toast on a hotel breakfast and were out bright and early, having a preprandial walk to the centre of town. Last night's restaurant bordered a square built around a memorial marking the spot that Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake. There are a number of other restaurants adjacent to La Couronne but, given the location, none offer barbequed stakes, steaks as their speciality.
On our way to Joan of Arc square a man rushed past us clutching a baguette. This man could not have been of French nationality for 3 reasons. One, Frenchmen don't rush when they have baguettes, they amble. Two, he bought his baguette in a small general store and not in a boulangerie, something a true Frenchman would never do. Thirdly and most importantly, he clutched his baguette. The French do not clutch their baguettes. They have The Grip (Le Grip in French). The baguette can be pinned by the upper arm, gently held in the hand or  placed, just so, in the shopping bag, but these are all variations of The Grip which all look perfectly natural, much in the same way that chopsticks are to the Asians. And this man just didn't have it. It hasn't been scientifically determined as yet whether The Grip is genetically passed down from generation to generation or learned, suckled from mother's milk, but the greatest French minds are working on identifying the source as a matter of national priority.

Our arrival at Joan of Arc square was a little early for a Sunday morning and even the small produce market at the square had barely gotten going. Feeling the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal following our failure of the previous evening, first priority was a good cup of coffee. As usual, we sat outside facing the street, as is done in this part of the world. Opposite us were 3 specialty food shops. The first  a shop devoted to foie gras and truffles, the second a fromagerie and the third a chocolaterie. You gotta admire the French.

Having satisfied our caffeine needs, it was time to hunt for breakfast. Something light. I was starting to suffer the effects of too much rich food over these last few days, my stomach having a somewhat bloated feel to it.  This didn't stop me from having my baguette filled with jamon crudo and vegetables, but maybe it should have. Once we'd filled our already full stomachs it was off to see the sites.
We saw more tourists in Rouen than anywhere else we'd been. The city is famous primarily for the Rouen Notre Dame cathedral and the old town with its half timbered architecture.
The Gothic cathedral is an impressive building. The bell tower and spire are in an early Gothic style, the main chamber high Gothic and the west wing early Renaissance. The pipe organ was so big that it looked as if its' construction spanned the entire neo-classical period. Am I writing this because I can tell the difference? No way. I read about it in wikipedia. But that, however, doesn't make it any less impressive . We entered the church at 10.45, not knowing that Sunday mass was about to start at 11. I haven't been to mass since one of the Collins boys took me to St Mary's church in Elwood when I was about 10. We figured that this was as good and holy an opportunity as we were going to get. Once we got a copy of the programme, which included such old time favorites as Agnus Dei and Regina Caeli (I thought they were the names of Catholic rock stars but apparently I am ignorant) and even Gloria (neither Van Morrison nor Patti Smith made guest appearances), we were convinced to give it a try. So the 4 Yids sat at the back, respectfully admiring the incense, the singing, the ceremony and the piety, wary of being offered any holy wafers on a full stomach. The organ, accompanying the Latin choral singing, was quite hypnotic. After 15 minutes or so we'd had enough of other people's religious rites, especially since we're not especially interested in our own religious rites. It was, however, a nice way to spend a Sunday morning. Perhaps if I'd gone to confession and repented for my sins of gluttony I may have felt a bit better but this was not to be and I was still feeling quite heavy. We left the religious activities for the true believers and continued walking around town, taking in the ambiance of the tightly packed houses, many of which stood askew due to old age.

Often, if you wander enough, you'll escape the tourist areas, as interesting as they might be, and you'll discover an unexpected jewel that is altogether local. And so it was that we stumbled on the Rouen Sunday market. There were no majestic buildings, no historic landmarks and no 800 year old restaurants here, just a throng of local Rouennais going about their Sunday morning activities. These activities included shopping for clothing in the two aisles of clothing stalls, picking through bric-a-brac in the flea market section, procuring the daily fresh produce, which of course was of the finest quality, sampling local and national cheeses and meat products and haggling over the price of the daily catch. There were also stalls offering ready cooked meals if madam or monsieur didn't feel like cooking on this particular sunday. All this activity made for tired shoppers, so the restaurants and bars surrounding the market were doing a roaring trade.

At the entrance to the market a sort of mariachi band was playing. The musicians were all obviously of North African origin and looked very happy in their trade, though I wouldn't go buying tickets for their Carnegie Hall gig quite yet. The bass player will have to get a fourth string to his instrument and for that matter will have to ensure that he actually has strings meant for musical instruments and not the different colored pieces of twine that were all made of different material, which he has at the moment. It was quite quaint. Much to my concern, I was feeling too full, even queezy, to try any of the cheeses, sausages or even the amazing looking paella, stocked full of fresh seafood that was on display. Quite disturbing, really.

After wandering through the market we wandered out of the market and continued wandering through the backstreets of Rouen. We passed another impressive church, lots of old half wooded houses and generally enjoyed ambling in no specific direction. After a while we passed a tea house which looked different from the many coffee bars that we'd passed. They had more than a hundred different teas. Many were true teas,derivatives of the tea plant. Many others were tisanes, infused from a variety of different plants. Garry had an espresso, Yoni an Indian Chai, Phil ordered his 8th Cola Zero for the day and I had an infusion that promised to aid digestion. This is getting serious when I choose to take a herbal tea over a good espresso. What impressed us most was the presentation. Each of our drinks (except for the Cola Zero) came in a different vessel, designed what seemed like specifically for that drink. These French have STYLE. As if that wasn't enough, our waiter placed a very stylish hour-glass between Yoni's drink and mine. (That's right, even the hourglass was stylish). The hour-glass actually had three measures, one of 3 minutes, one of 4 minutes and one of 5 minutes. When we asked what it was for, the waiter explained that my digestive extract was to steep for 4 minutes, Yoni's chai for 5. With that he placed our respective infusers into our glasses of boiling water, turned the sand-glass over, smiled and went back inside. Am I allowed to use the word "style" again?

After our very civilised drink break we continued in the general direction of the hotel and the car, with one more stop en route. This stop was a most definitely unplanned and uncivilised one. As we walked I noticed that there were drainage grates interspersed along the cobbled stone streets. I noticed this for a reason. Rather than aid in my digestion, my glass of tea seemed to have the opposite affect. Unable to control my over-stuffed feeling any longer, I hurriedly gave my back-pack and camera to Garry, warning him "this is going to be gross", and bought up what seemed like 2 days worth of semi-digested food. This must be one of the most inexcusable faux-pas imaginable in prim and proper Rouen, but there I was, retching in public. Bloody tourists. Serves myself right for taking herbal tea over espresso. After 10 minutes or so of impersonations of a young Linda Blair in  "The Exorcist" I felt a bit better and we continued on our way. We didn't give the local Rouen culture police a chance to run me out of town for crimes against local culture. We promptly loaded the car and left town. If they let me back in, I'd gladly visit Rouen again.

We were in no hurry to get back to the airport, especially since our 11 p.m. flight was delayed to 3 a.m. due to problems with the jet fuel in Israel. It might seem that I'm trying to be funny but it isn't the case. Flights into and out of Israel were delayed due to impurities found in the Israeli jet-fuel. I'm no-where near imaginative enough to make up a story like that. Since we were in no hurry, we drove though  little villages, roughly following the course of the Eure river. We wanted to walk a bit, down the banks of this meandering river and stopped outside an old manor house that had fallen into disrepair, hoping we could walk through the grounds along the river banks. A little old man was standing at an open window in the sitting room on the ground floor of the manor. The estate was his and it was obvious that his once noble family had fallen on hard times and in order to buy petrol for the motor-mower to cut the grass he tried charging 7 euro a person to walk through the place. We politely refused, heading back to the car. At another point along the way we made an unaccustomed hurried stop, the orange juice that I'd drunk having the same affect on me as the herbal tea. As time progressed I felt worse rather than better. My biggest regret wasn't my gluttony, but the fact that I wasn't able to eat. Imagine that. A whole day in France and no food. What a waste of a day. But that doesn't mean  Phil, Garry and Yoni weren't hungry ( to be honest, I'm surprised my little performance didn't put them off their food!) Trouble is, we encountered another French rule. Just as coffee isn't served after 9 at night in Rouen, meals are not served in restaurants after 4 p.m. on a sunday. We must have tried at least 10 restaurants in various villages, towns and cities, only to be told that they wouldn't serve us. There were places that had patrons sitting at tables finishing their meals but they wouldn't allow us to take a seat and start a meal. Eventually we found a Moroccan cous-cous restaurant where the front door was open. We snuck in while the owner was sitting out the front, enjoying the Sunday afternoon sunshine with his extended family. He really didn't want to serve us but perhaps the middle-eastern tradition of not turning away a stranger or making a few extra unexpected euro prompted him to call the cook back from his afternoon shloof. It took a long time to get any food but my 3 companions were so hungry and grateful that they'd found someone who was willing to feed them that it really didn't matter. And as I said, we weren't in any hurry. As for me, I sat there drinking mint tea.

In some ways, this was the right meal to finish off our trip with. We'd eaten in a Parisian bistro, a country restaurant, a traditional classic icon and demolished a seafood extravaganza. We'd had picnics, snacked on oysters, sampled cheeses and sausages and drank cider and wine. An ethnic meal just completed the culinary experience.
During the final hours of the trip, in the car on the way back to the airport, we started planning the next trip. Vietnam, Estonia, Catalan,  Basque are all options. Floating through canals in Europe or maybe a very long weekend in N.Y.C might also be possibilities. We don't have to decide yet. What is certain is that these 5 days in France have left us with a taste for more.