Vacation Redux - Rouen, France 2011

Our first full day with the Maguires was spent in Rouen, France. It's home to many famous and historical sites. Our hotel was very cute, except for the part where Tim and I had to trudge up three flights of narrow stairs to the attic room we were assigned. 

Our view was pretty much only peripheral, but we could see the Notre Dame cathedral only a short walk away...

This was also the first morning of our Patisserie tour of France. While the boys took all of our bags back to the car, KC and I wandered back to a bakery we had found the night before. (Oh, dear sweet Pain au Chocolat...how I miss thee.) We all met up in the courtyard in front of the cathedral for our morning breakfast. 

Once inside the magnificent cathedral, we found Richard the Lionheart...

 And McColley insisted on having his photograph taken multiple times.

We left the cathedral and walked towards the city center. On our way, we walked under the famous Gros Horloge, an astronomical clock that has been around since the 15th century.

 Like many sites in Europe, we were able to pay a fee to climb into the tower and listen to an audio tour. Here's a view of one of Rouen's streets from the clock...

 We walked all the way to the top, via some tight spiral staircases, to see the view of the city. That's the Notre Dame Cathedral behind Tim and me.

There were several signs inside the tower basically saying "These bells are very loud! You may not want to be in here."

Seeing how it was only a few, short minutes until Noon, Tim and I took the boys out of the tower to watch the changing clock. Do you see the bottom portion of the clock? How it's turning from light blue to dark blue? The photo changes at noon everyday. 

After the clock, we walked farther towards the city center and got lunch. We followed that up with some photos in front of Place du Vieux Marche or the modern chuch of St. Joan of Arc...

And a quick walk through the fish market, where we had to take a picture of a stunned McColley...

Yes, those are lobsters.

Our next stop was the Tour Jeanne D'Arc, but we passed a park along the way and the boys just had to play. This is still one of our favorite pictures, just for McColley's face. 

I don't remember the actual purpose of the tower, but I do remember standing with KC in the bottom while the boys jumped on the wooden doors on the floor above us. You know what? Towers echo A LOT! 

After our tour of the Tour (ha...you see what I just did there?), we jumped back in the car and headed towards Bayeux.