Hidden Treasures of Normandy

Not many could argue that summer is the best time for travelling. School is finally finished, the weather is beautiful, people are happier. Every time at this moment of the year I get a huge urge to just jump on a bus or a plane and explore as much as possible. And in this case, Paris is actually a great place to be, as France has a lot of different sights and adventures to offer, and they are all accessible pretty easily and affordably.

This time, I had a few days off from school and work, so me and my boyfriend decided to spend some of that time in one of the regions of Normandy. After asking our friends for recommendations and doing our research online, we had tickets to Rouen - an old-fashioned city, also known as capital of Normandy. The bus from Paris is only 2,5 hour ride away, so we were supposed to have a whole day in one of the oldest towns in France. Unfortunately, not always everything goes as planned.

First of all, I somehow managed to set up an alarm one hour later than I was supposed to. 20 minutes before the departure of the bus, we were standing by the door, packing our bags when I noticed that it is not the time we thought it was. The distance to the departure station was way too long for us to make it even with a cab, so quickly we started thinking what should we do. And 15 minutes later, we had new tickets two hours from the time. Of course, the tickets were not electronic, so we had to find a place to print them before, which is quite a challenge when there is a “jour ferie” (public holiday) in France and nothing is open. But we dealt with that quite fine and reached the station on time. The bus came as scheduled and everything seemed to have come back to the right tracks. However, next pick-up station proved us wrong. A bus driver got into a fight with one of the passengers which refused to leave the bus and threatened to call the police (we didn’t even understand what exactly happened). The point is, we were 30 minutes off the schedule. And our tickets back home were in 5 hours. I’ll admit, I wasn’t very happy at the time.

After a long fight and some kind of satisfactory solution the parties managed to come to, we finally moved, and at 6pm reached our destination. After this intense first part of the day, we felt pretty tired already. We were really hungry, so decided to sit down in a nice restaurant to recharge our batteries with a nice meal before exploring the city. What is unusual about that? well, that’s what we thought. But every restaurant we entered gave us a very surprised look when we asked if we could eat. Who would have thought, that no restaurants or cafes are serving food before 7pm? After being given this answer in about 10 places, we were really hangry and upset, so an open Taco truck seemed like a salvation. We calmed ourselves down and decided to fulfil our wish to enjoy a nice meal with a dessert and coffee after. We started exploring the old, charming streets of Rouen, stopping by at places we liked to ask for coffee. I guess You can imagine what happened next, of course. No place is serving coffee after 6pm! By that time our crazy trip didn’t bother us anymore, we started laughing at all the nonsenses that happened to us and just enjoyed the moment.

We managed to catch the last open coffee place for a nice warming drink, bought some home-made Normandy-specialised deserts at a sweet local bakery, sat down at the park with an amazing view to an impressive, ancient cathedral and enjoyed the magnificent spirit of the town. We understood, that people there live at a different pace: slower, calmer and in the moment. And that is what creates that special mood in the place. After realising that, we just went with the flow, and the rest of the trip went just as planned. I guess sometimes all we need, is to take break from thinking and stressing too much.

In the end, even with the tasks to find the hidden treasures (such as food and coffee), we enjoyed the trip very much. The gothic Rouen Cathedral, Gros Horloge, castles, tiny streets and small shops of handmade goods created a feeling that we were back in time. Back in the middle ages. Even if just for a while..