There aren't many teeth left in that smile. The place is, nonetheless, beautiful. A small French town is literally nestled between the bend in the Seine and the white chalk cliffs.
The ruins are Le Chateau Gaillard, and the town(s) is (are) Les Andelys.
We drove to the ruins from Amiens, having skipped my planned stop at Beauvais because the time was "Slip Sliding Away." I had been to the cathedral at Beauvais many years before; that seemed like the best stop to eliminate. I'm certainly glad that we didn't skip Chateau Gaillard. It was one of the most picturesque places we saw...and we saw a lot.
While we were on our way to the chateau in the black Kia, another car, black or dark blue, was also coming toward the chateau.
The drive there was interesting...my wife and I with the Google gal. The chateau is off the beaten path...except for the path of farm implements and tour buses. It seemed to be quite a rural area. At one point, a green tractor with a harrow or marker attached came around a corner toward us. The attachment extended into our lane. I live in a rural area; this kind of thing is routine. This was no cause for alarm...or wouldn't normally have been. Did I mention the corner? Did I mention the attachment extending into our lane? I didn't mention that the roadside had recently been mowed. Not the kind of mowing that mulches up the grass; the kind of mowing that merely cuts the tall grass, causing the herbage to fall, concealing who knows what--like some kind of Burmese tiger trap, or punji sticks--beneath its emerald veil. I swerved toward the inside of the curve. Belatedly, the tractor did veer away. (That sounds like the name of a girl. Had someone been telling me this story in person, and used those words, I might have said, "Oh, yeah. I think I went to school with her." The person would say, "With who?" (People I talk to don't usually say "whom," even when it would be correct to do so.) and I would say, "Vera. Vera Way." The person wouldn't laugh, but would continue the story, annoyed at the interruption.) As I was saying, the tractor did veer away.
All the while, another dark car continued toward the chateau from the opposite direction. It pulled a trailer along the floor of the Seine valley.
I avoided the collision with the farm implement. The mower, however, had placed the trap well. The fallen grass with long lovely stems had hidden the only piece of curbing in a ten mile radius. (Perhaps I exaggerate...perhaps I do not). The car jolted; there was a loud bump. It seemed that the right front wheel rim had found the curb concealed in the grassy ghillie suit. I was imagining the horribly marred rim, and hoping that the insurance would cover it.
When I did look at the tire and the rim, there was not so much as a scratch.
When we arrived at the chateau, I got a text message from a friend back home who was ready for me to drop by and help out with something that I had offered to do. I made a few phone calls back to Weiser and sent some texts to get some other friends to cover the problem that I was unable to handle personally.
We found that the tourist information center was closed...and looked as if it had been for years. The restrooms were open...wide open. Having learned from previous experience, we were prepared for the lack of paper products. We did our "Race Among The Ruins" at a leisurely walk, first down one steep slope and up another, before infiltrating the crumbling walls. We took lots of pictures. One of those pictures was of the long bridge over the Seine.
We didn't know it at the time, but our route would take us across the bridge, but only after we had encountered the dark car pulling the trailer.
Next time: Dark car vs Dark car with trailer
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