Arrival in Louviers

We have bidden farewell to Paris.  We had a lovely stay at the Grand Hotel Champaigne, situated on a quiet side street about a five minute walk from the back side of the Louvre and the row of "bouqenistes" selling used books and artistic posters along the Seine.  It offered us a nice little balcony, just right for a private breakfast space.  The service was excellent, the room quiet and comfortable; all in all, not a bad place to come back to sometime.

We had the option of breakfasting in, but only availed ourselves of the choice on our last day in town (to mourn France's loss in Euro 2016 the night before?  Maybe.)

The lobby gave a nice sense of quality as we came and went.  We recommend this hotel to you for a nice close-in experience.

 But on to our temporary residence for the rest of our stay.  Anita had discovered a book a few years ago, On Rue Tatin, describing the experience of the author, Susan Hermann Loomis, and her husband in buying and renovating this remarkable house.  It was a good read, and Anita started following Susan's blog.  We got to meet the author at a book signing in Albuquerque and fell quite in love with her.  Then she announced that this summer she'd be renting her house during the French vacation season of July and August, and we snapped up two weeks of it, and then started really learning about the house.

One of its features is its neighborhood.  Here's a view from the front door:

In case you're thinking "Okay, telephoto lenses and photo editing tools...".  Nope.  The distance betwen the fig tree up close and the facade of the church is about 200 feet.  And the church?  Maurice Duruflé's home church.  In case you don't know who that is, make sure your volume is up and click here.  You can thank me later.

As the NY Times article linked above tells you, the house dates back to the 15th century.  Okay, that's an understatement.  Part of the foundation was laid in the 12th century.  For 300 years it was a convent.  And now it's a lovely home that doubles as a cooking school, and we get to spend the next two weeks here.

Today we explored the neighborhood on foot.  To the south we bought sandwiches for lunch and walked back to our garden, passing the south side of the church, giving a completely different feel:

Typical Gothic architecture prefers the grand entrance to be on the west, which faces our house.  But for reasons that I haven't quite traced out, this one has the south side much more ornate than the west.

After lunch, we continued north to the town center.  The library/museum will be one of our big stops (it's closed tomorrow, Tuesday) because in the spirit of this year's celebration of the impressionists, they have a major impressionist portraiture exhibit for us.

And then finally, we took a little stroll along the Eure river, which runs through town, and was a major component of the cloth industry that was the main economic engine in the 13th and 14th centuries.  Across the street, the corner pub displayed a sign saying it sells fishing licenses.  Made me feel at home again.

Did you notice the flowers in several of the photos?  This town smells good!

Tomorrow we're off to Giverny, where Claude Monet did his painting and gardening, and then to Chateau Chantilly.  For those of you who normally associate that name with lace, you can also think dessert, chantilly being French for whipped cream.  But there's also a nice house there, too.