Our walking tour this morning takes us not only through the town, but up the hill to Chateau Galliard. The castle was built by Richard the Lionheart in 1196, who at the time was the King of England and the Duke of Normandy.
From here we should be able to see the castle high on the hill overlooking the town.
We head up the road towards the castle.
Nope!
As is the case with most of the medieval castles, all that stands today are the ruins. Here is what the chateau (or castle) most likely looked like in the 12th century.
The castle was expensive to build and it was built in the short span of about 2 years. It was one of the earliest castles to use machicolations....a hole in the floor from which stones, or boiling water or oil could be dropped on to attackers.
We hung out at the castle, and the fog was slowly starting to lift.
The castle had three dry moats around the structure,
And the sun was definitely trying to poke through the fog.
Still foggy on the hills when we arrived back down the hill.
But, we found our ship.
And as we set sail during lunch, we could start to see Chateau Galliard emerging from the haze.
Time to go through one of several locks on the river.
As we sailed along, our program directors did a presentation of classic French cheeses, bread, and (gulp) foie gras.
That evening we arrived in Rouen, where we will begin exploring in the morning.
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