Février 2003 (1)

Almost exactly 20 years ago, I spent a week in Rouen, the city that's the administrative capital of Normandy. Walt and I had come to France in December to look for a house in the Loire Valley. We found that house — the one we live in now — and once back in San Francisco we put a down payment on it. I needed to come back to France in February to finalize some of the arrangements for our move-in, and to measure the rooms so we could decide how many and which pieces of our California furniture we would send to France when we moved.

In planning my trip, I decided it would be a good idea to go spend two or three days with friends in Rouen. I had lived there for a year in 1972-73, and visited many times over the years. My decision turned out to be a good one, because when I arrived at Paris-CDG airport on January 31, it was snowing. I took the train up to Normandy, and then my friend Jeanine and I drove her car down to the Loire Valley a few days later. She was curious to see the property we had found to buy. (That's the famous cathedral in Rouen above right.)

The photos here are some I took in Rouen on February 1, 2003. I know I've posted some of them before, but for some it may have been as long ago as 2013. In 2003, a few days later it also snowed in Saint-Aignan the day Jeanine and I came to the house so that I could take some photos and measure the rooms. That snow didn't quite "stick" and didn't interfere with our travel plans, which included visits to the famous châteaux at Chambord and Chenonceaux. On the way back to Rouen, we stopped for a short walk around inside the cathedral at Chartres.