Château de Caen

The sun has come to stay for a few days so I have and will be making some good use of outdoor time. That's to balance out all the screen time I've had this week!! Ordering arts supplies on French websites takes awhile when you have to translate 2 out of 3 words!!! And...their keyboard keys are not the same!! (Neither are their washing machines!! Oy!!) I'm happy to say that the wheels of creativity have begun to turn and ideas are blossoming! PHEW! Thought I was going to suffer from the equivalent of writer's block!

Now to the pictures! My silly phone..er web browser...whatever - wasn't allowing wifi connection to the school. So as my phone is my camera, it was eating serious data to upload them to dropbox to access them for blogging. But, one magical 5 minute visit with IT guy and voilà!! No holds barred for picture sharing!! Yay! Onto Châteaux de Caen...and forgive me...it's my first castle so there are lots of pictures.

Up the big hill on the south side to Porte Saint-Pierre. This is a shot south.

Turn 180 to the north and here is the port...that being a bridge over an ancient moat.

Wouldn't be a proper porte without one of these.

And a moat..

To the church, St. George's, to get tickets for museums. Those are crypts on the floor. One belongs to the wife of William the Conqueror. This building was restored with help of the Province of Ontario as memorium to all the men and women that served from that province. I went to Le musée des Beaux-arts and then explored sculptures and some of the grounds.

The foundations/dungeons of original castle.

Moat in your back yard and view of castle...wonder what the list price would be??

Had to google elements of a rampart for this...could be crenellation or arrowslit. Far steeple is Abbey des Hommes. And those are the tallest structures in Caen, no high rises in its city centre.

Last stop was The Exchequer Hall est. 1120!! Contained many vertical banners suspended from timber ceiling that overviewed the vast history of the area. Had a story of the importance of the leopards of Normandy.

Stained glass is always beautiful...but I enjoyed the floor tile and...

...the hew marks on the stone.