One of my favorite SF series is Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy, set in an alternate universe where Richard the Lionheart survived the wound he sustained during the siege of Chaluz, so the Angevin Empire did not fall, leading (waves hands here) to a world where magic occupies the role that science fills in our world. Today, we visited Château Gaillard, overlooking the commune of Les Andelys; Richard built the castle to defend Normandy from the French.

Richard built defenses in depth against the French; one of them was a chain he used to block the river (though he would allow the French to pass if they paid toll!). One of the ends of the chain was on this island, which now hosts a beautiful residence.

Les Andelys is actually made up of two towns – Petit-Andely, where we were docked, and Grand-Andely, about half a mile inland. We visited Petit-Andely’s church, Église Saint-Sauveur du Petit-Andely.

Figures of Evil (facing England) and Good (facing France) support columns near the apse (the French king paid for the church to be build a couple of centuries after France absorbed Normandy).

Love for the French king was not universal among the workers, even if he did pay for the church – our guide pointed out a lion (facing England) and a monkey (facing France) in the transept.

Petit-Andely has a number of half-timbered buildings, like this restaurant. In its previous life, it was a gas station and the upper story was covered with red plaster!

We left Petit-Andely and got on a bus to ride up to Château Gaillard. Our guide took us through the ruins and told us the story of the final siege of the castle after Richard’s death; his brother, King John (of Magna Carta fame), refused to send aid to the castle and the French were able to take it and eventually all of Normandy.

We looked around the ruins for a few more minutes, then set out on the walk down to the village.

Our guide pointed out the locally-brewed Richard the Lionheart beer, but buying beer seemed unnecessary while on a cruise!

Tonight, the ship is sailing to Le Havre at the mouth of the Seine; we’ll spend most of the next two days there.

We left our AirBnB this morning to go to the AmaLyra and drop off our luggage. It was far too early for cabins to be ready, so we had a choice: sit in the lounge for a few hours or go out and continue exploring. It wasn’t a difficult choice.

We still had one Rick Steves walk to do – Rue Cler, which is a short (two blocks) shopping street that he says is typical for an upscale Parisian neighborhood, with lots of fresh food and activity. We took the Metro and discovered that it was already Shen Yun season in Paris.

The two blocks that Rick Steves put on his tour have been pedestrianized (though we did have to dodge a few delivery vehicles and taxis), making for a pleasant walk. We stopped and enjoyed the sights, sounds, and smells at several stores, including a wonderful greengrocer (whose prices were noticeably higher than the greengrocer near our AirBnB on Rue Saint-Honore in the 1st), a great chocolate shop (they got some of our money!), and a branch of Mariage Freres tea shops (they got our money, too). We didn’t go into the seafood restaurant which used to be a horsemeat butcher, but we did have lunch at Café du Marché and quite enjoyed it.

We still had plenty of time to kill before the official embarkation time, so we decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower.

We still had plenty of time, so we walked the rest of the way back to the ship, passing by the Olympic Breaking venue and the Japanese Cultural Center on our way. Oh, and we got a view of the other side of the tower.

We got to the ship a few minutes after official embarkation started and were greeted warmly by the crew.

We unpacked, met new friends, listened to the briefings (and were grateful that we didn’t have to do a lifejacket drill), and finally were released to have dinner. We sailed upstream (east) for a short while, giving me one last chance for a picture of the tower and the Statue of Liberty, before turning downstream for our overnight sail to our first stop in Les Andelys for a tour of Château Galliard.