Vernon and the ferry

On our way out of Giverny, we passed through the town of Vernon. We crossed over the Seine and ended up in the old town portion of the city. We decided to park the car for a few minutes and take some photos because it seemed sort of picturesque, and because Jeff had read about the town in one of our guidebooks prior to leaving on our vacation.

We walked back across the Seine via the Clemenceau Bridge, and ended up near the old mill, which is built straddling two piers of the old bridge across the Seine. The old bridge dates from the 12th century, and the mill dates from the 16th.


Right next to the mill is the Tourelles Castle. It dates from the middle ages.


Walking back across the Seine, we got a decent view of the Eglise Notre-Dame, a church dating from the 12th century. We didn't go in, but rather headed back to our car to continue our journey towards our bed for the night.


With the exception of our first trip to Europe back in 2003, we've always had our Garmin GPS unit with us. For the most part, it does a great job of navigating us through the twisty roads of Europe, around confusing roundabouts, and through both tiny towns and large cities. We are occasionally led through cabbage fields along cart paths, but as those stories serve to add color to our vacation, we don't mind.

Our next destination for the day was the town of Jumieges, another town near the Seine, and another hour or so along our drive to Torigni-sur-Vire. Garmin took us right down to the town, but on the opposite side of the river, and presented us with a "board ferry" command. Hmm. We had a) no idea what times the ferry ran, and b) no idea how much the ferry cost, so we decided to drive up the river a ways to see if we could find a bridge. We drove about five minutes and discovered... another ferry. Hmm. This time the ferry was on our side of the river, and was actively being boarded by another vehicle. We lingered for a minute, and were waved on board by the pilot, who charged us nothing, and deposited us on the other side of the river about five minutes later. As usual, Garmin was right.


That's our black sedan on the left in the photo above. It's a new model for Renault, and we noticed it being investigated by people during the entire week we had it. One day on the highway, the proud owner of new black Renault Fluence passed us grinning widely. It was a bit strange, as generic black sedans are not all that exciting over here in the US, and I'm not sure why this one was that interesting over there. Anyway, it served us well for the week we had it, though I think we were both hoping for something a bit more quirky and "French" for our trip.