Pat and Norm's World Cruises and other adventures

April 10, 2026

As we awoke this morning, we were reminded of how, during yesterday’s ceremony, we were thanked as Americans, for the help we provided France, and how grateful they are. They again thanked us for coming back. Our guide also thanked us today and said if it wasn’t for us, they would be speaking German. Each year 300 veterans still visit and Normandy beaches have 4 million visitors a year from all over the world.

Our trip today is to Versailles. We have visited previously but today, our visit will include the secret apartments of the palace. The trip took about 30 minutes. Our guide was Aurelie and she was wonderful, as all of the guides have been.

Versailles is an elegant town just southwest of Paris, known worldwide for its palace but beloved by locals for its culture and quality of life. It grew up as a town in the 17th century alongside Louis XIV’s court. Wide geometric avenues radiate from the palace and the same configuration exists in Washington DC and St. Petersburg, Russia.

Versailles was the official residence of the country’s kings and queens from 1682 until the revolution. The Louvre was the palace before that. There are 2300 rooms in the palace of Versailles – of course not all are available for touring! This was originally a modest hunting lodge with large stables across the street and was turned into the palace. All of the buildings with the gold on top were part of the original hunting lodge. The gold is gold leaf and must be carefully applied by hand. Can you imagine that? The extravagance helped fuel the rage that led to the revolution.

We went in through the group entrance, which meant no waiting, and the group could not be more than 25. One couple had to leave our group so we were 24 which made the visit really wonderful as the private apartments are not open to individual visitors.

Aurelie had many stories about the royalty of the time. Louis XIV married Marie Antoinette at age 16. He had many mistresses over his lifetime and the mistresses lived in a separate set of rooms near the king’s rooms. Marie Antoinette was a modern thinking woman for her time. For example, she refused to wear the corsets that were so tight that women fainted because they couldn’t breathe! Also, it was the custom for children to be raised separately from their parents until age 7 and she refused to do that and kept them with her. She had 4 children.

Louis XIV was responsible for some of the known ballet moves – he was a skilled dancer and was proud of his dancer’s legs!

Louis XVI became an orphan at 5 years old and suffered all his life from depression. He was married and reportedly never had mistresses!

I will share photos from the secret apartments and then from the state apartments. There is much too much to post so I will have to choose.

Candles were expensive too. There were about 6000 candles in the palace and ONE candle cost the equivalent of the salary of a worker’s week. Most of the furnishings were sold off during and after the French Revolution.

Once we got to the state apartments, it was much more crowded. The art, tapestries, etc, are amazing but a highlight is always the Hall of Mirrors.

Aurelie told us that she had a surprise for us and led us down to the chapel which was empty except for another tour group. This is a private area that we were allowed into after a guard opened it with a key!

We had a really enjoyable day. Aurelie really brought the palace and the period of history to life and I am sure I didn’t remember it all.

This is Uniworld’s 50th anniversary so there was a Captain’s Farewell and Golden Cocktail reception and a Golden dinner, followed by entertainment by a wonderful singer, Celine.

Tomorrow we go back to Paris and will do a walking tour of the Latin Quarter. Then it will be time to pack for our trip to Lyon to board the SS Catherine for the next segment of our trip.

April 9, 2026

There is so much to say about this day – I have to start somewhere! We chose to go with Martin for this tour. We have had him as a guide several times already and he did the WWII lecture so we knew how deep his historical knowledge goes.

The trip to the beaches from Rouen takes 2 1/2 hours so there was lots of time for commentary. We learned that gas is very expensive here because they need to import all of their oil – it is about $12/gallon, but that due to lots of windmills and nuclear plants, electricity is very inexpensive. There are lots of electric cars and charging stations.

Martin told us that there are 29 cemeteries in France for war casualties. We will visit the highlights of the American sites. There are only 7 non Americans on our ship and they have a separate small vehicle to take them to the Commonwealth and British/Canadian sites. We have met one couple from UK and and three people from Australia but don’t know the other two.

At the beaches of Normandy, 160,000 soldiers landed by sea and air. The conditions were not great, and the landing was actually delayed by a day from June 5 to June 6. Martin talked about the strategic decisions made by Eisenhower and how this invasion was ultimately a success in spite of the forces being greatly outnumbered by the Germans. In fact, Hitler was led to believe by information from spies that the landing would not take place in Normandy but in a site closer to the narrowest part of the channel between England and France.

We decided to re-watch the movie “The Longest Day” since Martin referred to it a lot.

On the drive, we saw the yellow covered fields that we have seen all through our travels in this area. They are rapeseed fields. Rapeseed is primarily used to make canola oil.

The battle of Normandy is considered to be 24 hours that changed history. It began with air assaults shortly after midnight on June 6, 1944. Allied troops took part in the largest seaborne invasion in history. With this campaign – code named Operation Overlord – the allies established a 55 mile long coastline. By day’s end, more than 160,000 Allied troops had landed in France, loosening Hitler’s once firm grip on Western Europe and paving the way for the liberation of Paris less than 3 months later on August 15, 1944.

Our first stop was at Utah Beach where the assault began in the early hours of the morning with US parachutists from 2 airborne divisions. Hampered by poor visibility, complicated terrain and artificially flooded fields, they eventually captured Sainte-Mere-Eglise, the first town liberated in the invasion.

We headed to the town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise where we visited the church. The US Army paratrooper Private John Steele became famous when his parachute caught on the steeple of the church. He hung there for 2 hours, playing dead before being captured, escaping and rejoining his unit. A mannequin remains on the church today.

We visited the airborne museum, had a nice picnic lunch and wandered through the market.

We visited the American Cemetery which is now US land. It is a sobering place with the markers perfectly lines up to remind visitors of how many lives were lost. There are 9386 graves here. Only 4 women were buried here, US nurses.

Our next stop was Pointe du Hoc, the site of one of the most daring operations of the Allied landings. There are many bomb craters and artillery batteries which serve as stark reminders of the battles fought here. The sea wall allowed the troops to shoot from either way.

Our last stop was Omaha Beach. This area was fortified by German batteries and proved to be a deadly objective. Wave after wave of troops from the US 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions were cut down. However the few who managed to scale the beach’s steep slopes breached the German defenses by midday. To the west the strategic German defense at Pointe du Hoc was scaled quickly but taken only after significant losses by the US 2nd Ranger Battalion.

We were each given a rose before a very touching ceremony was held.

One of our guides conducted the ceremony. A local trumpeter played the star spangled banner and then taps, followed by a moment of silence. Our guide read the following from the speech given by Eisenhower at the 20th anniversary of the battle.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America’s prayerful and continuing inspiration:

“We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.”

I had tears in my eyes during the whole ceremony. We then took our roses and laid them at the foot of the memorial. Some chose to put them into the sea.

It was a long, emotional and tiring day. We had our dinner back on the ship and went to bed early. Tomorrow will be at Mantes-La-Jolie and our tour of the Palace of Versailles.

April 8, 2026

We arrived to our port very early after traveling from Rouen at night. Our tour today is a walking tour in a nearby village, Honfleur.

It was a short bus ride to the village and on our way there, our tour guide, Stephanie (who happens to be our other guide – Martin’s wife) told us about the area.

Honfleur is known as one of Normandy’s most enchanting port towns, tucked where the Seine River meets the English Channel. Its heart is the Vieux Bassin, a small 17th century harbor lined with tall, narrow, slate covered houses. A young Claude Monet spent time painting here. The history dates back to the 11th century and its port launched explorers like Champlain, who sailed from here to found Quebec.

One of the most surprising things was the thatched roof houses. We have seen them in other places before, but never with irises planted on top of them! The roots are long and help to stabilize the roofs!

Here are some of the sights in the town.

Honfleur is near Lisieux, home of St. Theresa. I was fascinated by her as a teenager.

It was a lovely day and the weather was perfect.

We had a cocktail party for the river Heritage Club members (at least one previous cruise with Uniworld) and Captain Dave, Woody and Ruben came around to each table to thank us for our loyalty.

After dinner, we had entertainment by the Hot Stompers, a New Orleans style jazz band. They were terrific!

Tomorrow will be a long and emotional day – we visit the beaches of Normandy. It is a 2 1/2 hour bus ride so we leave at 7:15 and won’t be back until about 7 PM. I have been there many years ago but Norm has not. We think it will be one of the highlights of the trip. Stay tuned.

April 7, 2026

This morning we did a walking tour of Rouen with our guide, Elodie. Please note the French shoes!

We really enjoyed this city. It is the historic capital of Normandy and is a beautifully preserved medieval city. It is France’s only UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy.

The skyline is dominated by the magnificent Notre-Dame Cathedral which Monet painted more than 30 times. Victor Hugo called Rouen the city with a hundred bell towers. The one of Notre-Dame briefly made it the tallest building in the world.

The cathedral took 400 years to build, between the 12th and the 16th century and acquired many spires and styles as it was expanded and renovated in different eras. On the opposite side of the square is the former treasury building where Monet had an apartment and was used as his studio.

There is a stunning astrological clock, the Gros-Horloge.

Some of the other sights around the city include the half timbered houses, restaurants, brasseries and some charming streets and alleys.

This is the place du Vieux-Marche, the site where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. Elodie told us the story of how Joan helped Charles become king and that she needed to be executed as a witch at the age of 19 to protect his reign. She was actually exonerated 25 years after her execution in 1431. There is a striking modern church near the site. The stained glass windows were preserved during the war and re-used in this church.

We returned to the ship for dinner and went out again for a 9 PM concert in the Notre-Dame cathedral. It was simply amazing. The cathedral has wonderful acoustics and seemed even more magical at night. The choir had about 30 men and women. They started with an excerpt from the Hallelujah Chorus, did one selection in English, Simple Gifts from Appalachian Spring. The cathedral is a short walk from the ship so we were back by about 10:15. I hope I can insert the video even though it doesn’t do it justice!

Tomorrow we will visit the village of Honfleur which is about a 1 hour trip from where we will dock in Caudebec-en-caux.

April 6, 2026

At about 11:30 we sailed from La Roche Guyon to Vernon-Giverny. The sun was out and the weather got warmer, in fact, just about a perfect temperature in the 60s.

It was a beautiful sight to see the small villages along the way and also the many swans.

We had our lunch in the restaurant Le Pigalle.

Giverny was the home and working studio of Claude Monet. Our guide was the same gentleman as this morning, Martin, and he gave us a lot of information about the site and about the artist.

Monet moved here to the countryside as a practically penniless artist who could not afford to live in the city anymore. He was really a city person and resisted the move. He moved when he was 43 years old and lived here the rest of his life. He died at 86, one hundred years ago – 1926.

We first visited the famous gardens. I was here with our son Mark over 25 years ago and it was impressive then – still amazing. If you are not garden people, you may be bored with all the photos and I will only post some of them.

One thing to mention, we found out last year that Easter Monday is a huge holiday here in France, and the lines of visitors here on such a beautiful holiday certainly reflected that. We moved through the gardens with lots of space as it didn’t feel too crowded there. Going through the house was another story. We had a long wait and didn’t have a chance to visit the gift shop before we had to leave the site. Some of our tour groups didn’t even go through the house.

The tulips, rhododendron, azaleas, hyacinths, pansies and other spring flowers were in full bloom. There is something wonderful to see here in summer when the roses and wisteria are in bloom but today was just beautiful.

We had a fairly quick walk through Monet’s house. He was a collector of Japanese art and there are thousands of pieces in his house. Others are in the museum.

We had a bit of time to relax before the welcome gala reception where we got to meet the heads of all of the departments and the talk about the next day’s tours with our cruise manager, Monty – found out that is what he likes to be called, not Richard!

They said if I took their picture, I had to have one of me with them.

We had a fun dinner with two new couples.

After dinner, we were entertained by a terrific singer, Sara.

A couple of sights along the sway as we headed to Rouen, our stop for tomorrow.

April 6, 2026

After breakfast, we went out on a walking tour with our guide, Martin. He is Belgian but has been in France for 30 years. And can he talk! Many stories and lots of history awaited us as we went to the the Chateau de la Roche-Guyon.

The limestone outcropping began its history as a cave dwelling and later transformed into a fortress, where medieval knights stood guard against invading Vikings. Over the centuries it grew into a proper palace, housing a string of lords who gave the chateau its name – “La Roche-Guyon” which translates into “The Rock of Guy”, Guy being a typical name for these noblemen.During WWII, Rommel made his headquarters here because the ancient fortifications and caves were so secure.

The buildings show the original limestone and the windows that have the traditional arched shape typical of the 18th century when many additions were made to the chateau.

The village is considered one of the most beautiful of all France and we could see some of it as we climbed up into the castle.

Richard the Lionheart was a Duke of Normandy and the ruins of his castle still remain – the Chateau Gaillard. We didn’t visit the ruins but heard the stories of the fighting between the two castles.

Here are some pictures of the inside of the chateau. Most of the rooms are bare and what little furniture is in them is not from the period, but are reproductions. The tapestries are original.

There are three chapels in the chateau.

Apple and pear orchard belonging to the chateau. Our riverboat is in the background.

We returned to the ship for lunch and then headed out to explore Giverny. I will do a separate post about it and about our evening.