After our time in Les Andelys, we had lunch on our riverboat and then sailed to Vernon where we took a short walking tour through the old part of town. The picture above the title is the Old Mill. The Old Mill is a landmark in Vernon and was originally a water mill. It was built between two piers of an old bridge over the Seine. Several mills like this one used to be operating on the river all along the old wooden bridge. The mill dates back to the 16th Century. It was one of the sites painted by Claude Monet.

The picture depicted below, the Tourelles Castle (or Turrets Castle), was built in 1196 to defend the town of Vernon when France was warring with England. The castle consists of a square tower surrounded by four round turrets. It is one of the few castles in France which has been practically unchanged for the past 800 plus years.

This is the Archives Tower, the keep of a former castle. Its origin goes back to 1123 and is a rare example of a round tower in Normandy. In the 19th Century, it was used to house the archives of Vernon, thus its name.

This is a picture of the Town Hall. It was built at the end of the 19th Century and faces the church. The mayor had the bell tower built higher than the church because of the rivalry between religious and civil power at the time.

While in Vernon we also visited the Collegiate Church of Notre Dame. The building of the church stretched from the 11th Century to the 17th Century. The church was dedicated in 1072 “to the Holy Mother of God.” The Church has a unique rose window in flaming gothic style (second picture below). This style is described as a decorative, flame-like latticework. The stained glass windows had to be replaced after World War II due to bombing raids.

We only spent a few hours in Norman but found it to be a charming town. I will finish this post writing about a statue of a bear, very unlike most everything else we had seen in Norman. Entitled “Walking Bear,” the statue’s creator, Richard Orlinski, is a French artist. He crafted a red crocodile in 2004 which resulted him developing quite a following. Many of his sculptures are animals and are designed to be symbols of “freedom, power and passion.” His work has been seen all around the world. They are often displayed outdoors as he believes art should be “accessible to the masses.”