Sea Cruise, Part 3

Rouen, France

With the ship docking overnight here, the younger contingent decided to visit the D-Day landing beaches in Normandy, while the elders chose to stay in the historic city of Rouen.

As with many of the places we visited, Rouen officially displayed its support for Ukraine by flying its flag near the city hall….. as well as a plea for peace in Gaza…..

No stranger to conflict, Rouen was the seat of government of Normandy, which William I (later William the Conqueror) ruled before he went on to defeat England in the year 1066, an event which changed the face and future of medieval Europe.

Joan of Arc was executed in Rouen’s market square in 1431 after leading French forces to several key victories over the English in the Hundred Years War….

Rouen was intensely bombed by the Allied forces in the days leading up to D-Day in 1944… to weaken the occupying German logistical networks in the area. Many buildings were damaged or destroyed, including the courthouse. Rouen was liberated just a few months later. As the city began to rebuild, they decided to leave some of the damage in place in memory of the many losses during the war. ….. Skip forward 60 years, and a French/German artist collected used Lego bricks from the children of Rouen to partially fill in the shell-pocked outer wall of the courthouse to highlight the building’s history.

The first cathedral was built in Rouen on this site in the 4th century; it has been razed and rebuilt many times; construction of the current Gothic cathedral began in the 12th century. We secured a room with a nice view…..

The Rouen Cathedral was famous as the tallest building in the world for about 4 years in the late 1800s….. and in the 1890s, the Impressionist painter Claude Monet commemorated it in a series of about 30 paintings exploring the reflection of light on the front façade.

Today, you can see a light show of a totally different type – undreamed-of by William the Conqueror, Joan of Arc, the cathedral’s architects or even Claude Monet…..

Bruges, Belgium

Bruges was rainy, but the town square is always a treat in these medieval cities with lots of character and so many diverse people milling around.

The local antiquities market does not allow the sale of any item less than 50 years old….which made for great browsing.

We got a sweet painted Delft tile from the 18th century…..

And a contemporary waffle!

Rotterdam, The Netherlands

The historic center of Rotterdam was almost completely leveled by German bombing in 1940. A bronze memorial called The Destroyed City was installed in 1953 as an emotional reminder of this event….

One of the few buildings to survive the bombings is the White House, built in 1898… at 10 stories, the first high-rise building in Europe.

The people of Rotterdam, however, chose to embrace modern architecture going forward after the devastation of World War II…… including huge public spaces, pedestrian shopping streets, and some fabulous buildings, including the market hall…..

The Cubes…. An art installation with commercial and residential space….

And an art storage facility called the Depot of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen…..

Amazing that bicycle, motorized vehicle and human traffic coexist so comfortably in this modern city……

Gothenburg, Sweden

Gothenburg deserves more than a single day to explore, but art was in the forefront for our short stay, starting at the Art Museum…

Street art……

And fiber art!

Caleb found a lot to like in the Swedish meatballs…..

From Gothenburg, we spent a last night together on the Silver Shadow……

….. before arriving in …..

Copenhagen, Denmark

A highlight for all of us was an evening at the home of a Danish couple who are close friends with Margaret, a buddy of Henry’s from way back. Jette and Hans Otto gave us a delightful dinner, but even more fun was the lively conversation. We had a chance to trade our personal stories, and our perspectives on things happening in both our countries. So much to think about and be grateful for…..

Holly, Matt, Lily and Caleb are heading home from Copenhagen, but not until after we visited the giant Lego store there…..

….. Helped out with the changing of the palace guards…..

… and – in spite of rain showers – managed a visit to Tivoli Gardens, an entertainment venue that was one of the first amusement parks in the world.

The rain slacked off, we had a nice dinner, and concluded the evening at a live concert by the American band Train, which coincidentally was one of Holly and Matt’s favorites from their college days…..

We enjoyed having Matt, Holly, Caleb and Lily on this part of the trip with us….

We hope they enjoyed it and learned as much as we did about this part of the world. They now return to their lives in the US while we continue on with explorations of Scandinavia ….. by land.