CRUISES: Paris to Normandy with Uniworld

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

There’s an easy way to see France, to enjoy its cuisine, to drink its wines. It’s to sail its rivers. Preferably with a company that understands Americans, a company like Uniworld that is, in fact, an American company and knows our preferences and can make them happen on a small river boat.

The cruise industry, however, believes more is better. It keeps building bigger ships, some so large they won’t pass through the Panama Canal. But small-ship cruise lines are sailing the other way -- along Europe’s rivers and probably giving their passengers a more intimate and authentic experience of a foreign country.

Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection, for example, now owns nine boats in Europe including the one we took on the river Seine from Paris to the northern coast of France, our third cruise with Uniworld. Many Americans were onboard the River Baroness to acknowledge what their fathers and grandfathers had done on D-Day and to see Les Braves, the tribute the French government had erected in 2005 on Omaha Beach to the Allied forces who liberated France. It took a long time for the French to make a show of gratitude but memorials do take time.

Our group drove across the windy landscape from Rouen along the bleak waterfront. It had rained for several days – (“It always rains in Normandy,” say the superior people in the south, in Provence). Suddenly the sun broke through the clouds and lit up Anilore Banon’s masterpiece as if it were on stage. It was most moving. Indeed when the sculpture was erected the artist, overwhelmed, said to the spectators, “These men were more than soldiers, they were our brothers.”

The wind blows across the half-sunk concrete remnants of the Mulberry Harbour and up the cliff where so many of the invaders were pinned down and lost their lives. Little dervishes of sand whirl and turn as the wind ebbs and flows. It’s a solemn moment. Above this bluff where so many died on Omaha Beach, signs mark the entrance to the American cemetery in Colleville. The crosses and Stars of David disappear into the horizon. It’s another devastating experience but, as we heard a father say to his children, “You must never forget.”

The Uniworld cruise surely gave us memories of the villages and new museums around the D-Day beaches and of the medieval museum of the Bayeux Tapestry. The tapestry was created in 1066 to celebrate the Norman invasion of Britain, the only time England has been successfully invaded. In a strange twist to a millennium of history, Bayeux was the first town liberated in 1944.

The embroidery portrays the Norman victory at the Battle of Hastings even to the arrow through the eye that famously killed Harold, the unfortunate English King. It runs 20 inches high for 230 feet, took ten years to create and, paradoxically, this famous French masterpiece was embroidered in England either in Winchester or Canterbury!

Uniworld offers daily complimentary guided tours as well as additional excursions but one of the advantages of river-boating is that where the boat is tied down has been the center of the town for centuries. Everything is an easy walk. After our daily trips we wandered all over whichever medieval villages or town we were in that day. And of course came back to the same bed and laid-out clothing. Gone are the old days of the coach tour with its unpacking every night.

So we explored Les Andelys and Chateau-Gaillard, Richard-the-Lionheart’s ruined 12th century castle where the king was killed by an enemy arrow as he carelessly walked the parapets without his chain armor. We wandered all over Honfleur, a major port in the 17th century and a town that figures in many of the historical novels about the Napoleonic Wars. It has the oldest wooden church in France, a welcome refuge during the mist and rain that hung over us all day. Gaily colored shop fronts opened on to its narrow streets. It has been painted many times by artists like Claude Monet but none were out and about the rainy day we visited in March. We had detailed guided visits to both Versailles and next day Paris but nothing was as appealing as an afternoon to ourselves after the guide showed us Rouen.

We walked around Rouen, a city with a population of half a million. It was magnificent: medieval, historic and fascinating. Joan of Arc, France’s patron saint, was burned at the stake here in 1431 at the age of 19. She probably had temporal lobe epilepsy: she heard voices telling her to lead the French army in battle against the English enemies. Her statue stands outside a beautiful modern church in the square where she was executed. A simple but informative museum sits across the street, just beyond the celebrated town clock -- and nearby, in the cathedral, lies the heart of Richard-the-Lionheart. The interesting part of Rouen is the inner city. As the saying goes: “Paris embraces the Seine, Rouen ignores it.”

The cruise ended in Paris but the pleasure for us was not only the “City of Light” but the way the crew of our Uniworld River Baroness took pains with its talks and educational evenings for us to understand what we were seeing -- and to help us get the most from our adventure in France. AJ, our English cruise director, even gave us a French lesson every night. Fortunately there was no exam. Magnifique!