Every mile or two on the highway. Seems ominous.

There’s also a narrow gauge choo-choo that takes one on a 20 minute ride, but the walk (1 ½ mile) was prettier.

We went to Exbury Gardens - I confess I had never heard of it before. Wowie, this is as big and beautiful a botanical garden as I’ve ever seen. 200+ acres of explosive color. Owned by the Rothschild family for just over 100 years.

In those days, you could walk freely among the stones, but these days you can’t get much closer than 50 yards or so. I would imagine that a few decades of spray paint graffiti and people chipping off pieces of stone as souvenirs, took their toll.

Stonehenge would have qualified as three bucket list checkmarks in a row, but I’ve been here before. Way back when, my parents did the then-prototypical Rome-Paris-London trip, with young-teen me in tow, Stonehenge included. This was shortly after Stonehenge was built.

It’s an onboard requirement to wave back.

The trip from Rouen up the Seine toward the Channel (or La Manche, as the French would prefer), was quite pretty. And lots of river cruise boats. Gotta try that one of these days.

Lots of bright yellow rapeseed fields everywhere, they bloom in April & May. Cultivated for (less rudely titled) canola oil.

Next up, the Monet house & garden. Two bucket list checkmarks in two days. One of the images below is not mine.

No, not Guns & Roses. Guns & Ice Cream.

The Normandy American cemetery in Collevielle-sur-Mer.

Our first full day on the ship was a long one - a 10-hour shore excursion to the Normandy beaches. Equal parts fascinating and sobering.

A quick Uber from the Rouen train station to the port, and voila, we (finally) board our ship.

After a few days, it’s time to turn this trip into a cruise, as originally planned. We took t he train from Paris to Rouen, to meet up with the ship (about 8 days late). The train was fun and easy - no luggage lines, no security lines, no boarding gate lines, no 14-minute “how-to-fly-safely” videos. No seat belts. On big comfy seats.

If/when we’re in Paris, we’ll visit the d’Orsay, and reacquaint with some old friends on the walls. Love Degas’s snooty little ballerina girl. And the view from the open roof area is great.

Remember those horrible videos of the carved tall spire, engulfed in flames, and finally just falling? Lookin’ good now.