Abbaye de Jumieges

The ferry dropped us off on the right side of the Seine, and we drove back down the riverbank to the town of Jumieges to see the ruins of the Abbaye de Jumieges. The original abbey dates back to the 7th century. That one was destroyed by the Vikings. In the 10th century, Duke William Longsword (a good, strong last name) built a new Benedictine abbey on the ruins of the old abbey. The monks hung out there for a few centuries and then left during the Revolution. In 1793, the abbey was bought by a merchant who decided to use it as a quarry, and proceeded to use explosives to blow it up, producing the ruined state we see today. In 1852, a new owner arrived and set about preserving the ruins. As you can see by the scaffolding in our photos, the French are still working on the preservation...


My eyes are closed in this photo because I'm sooooo sleepy...


These cats were busy trying to find a warm and quiet place to take a nap. They had selected some large planter boxes when we arrived.


On our way out, we noticed that they'd moved to a new spot. Perhaps the planters were too damp.


Jumieges was our last touristy stop for the day. We left Jumieges and hit the highway towards our home for the next couple of nights, Le Clos des Matignon in Torigni-sur-Vire. I'll show you photos of that in our next post.