Vive la continuation!
First-time twinners Dennis and Molly Ward describe their visit to Mont Saint Aignan in September 2024:
Our trip to Mont Saint Aignan was most enjoyable from start to finish. Mont Saint Aignan is a district on the outskirts of Rouen. We went via the Newhaven to Dieppe ferry, just a 75 mile drive by road plus the four hour ferry crossing. On both sides of the Channel the roads are hassle free and the journey can only be described as relatively relaxed.
Our hosts, Guillemette and Michel, were most welcoming and we started the weekend in a typically French way – many people, including the family that stayed with us earlier in the year, sitting down to a meal together. The wine flowed and the food was excellent.
On Saturday we visited the home of Claude Monet, the artist, in Giverny. Together with the house, the garden has been beautifully maintained to reflect Monet’s paintings and it was a pleasure to see the lake, the house, and the famous bridges ‘in the flesh’, so to speak. Although the gardens and house are the centre point of the visit, the village of Giverny was very much part of the day and extremely popular – an attraction well worth a visit if you are in that region of France. The day was rounded off with a dinner in the local community centre with lots of activities including a painting competition ‘in the style of Monet!’.
On Sunday the itinerary showed a visit to the Chateau de Martainville, a spectacular 14th Century (?) Chateau which had been abandoned and fell into disrepair. It was renovated by the local community and acted as a museum housing typical fittings and furniture of the locality suited to a building of this style and grandeur. Very interesting, well thought out and an excellent example of a Chateau of this age.
In theory this was the end of a most enjoyable weekend and many of the visitors returned home on Sunday evening. Some of us, however, chose to stay over for another night.
Michel, a very keen gardener and raconteur, suggested we may like to go to a church service celebrating horticulture before the Chateau visit in the morning. It was not a Harvest Festival as most of us know it. It was a very large celebration of everything horticultural including livestock – chickens, rabbits and sheep in pens for instance – a very impressive occasion which took over a week to set up and raised thousands for charity.
In the afternoon we visited another church which had been taken over by the local authority. This housed a very large exhibition of alternatives to university for young people who would rather go down the artisan/apprenticeship route. An excellent idea. The standard of activity was high and ranged from textiles to stone masonry and everything in between. Most of the exhibitors were young themselves and able to relate directly to the visitors, often with a lot of hands-on experience. What an opportunity to be able to see, try and discuss alternatives to full time further education at the age when it counts.
Our thanks must go to Michel and Guillemette, our hosts, as well as the other members of the Mont Saint Aignan twinning group, for a most enjoyable and informative weekend. We thoroughly enjoyed it. It has been going for 50 years and 2024 was the first of the next 50. An excellent example of how relationships can be maintained in our very troubled world. Let’s hope it continues – it’s well worth it!
