The Seine is part of the Rouen landscape. Flowing within the city, it divides the Norman metropolis into two parts: the right bank (north bank) and the left bank (south bank). Lacroix Island is the last island on the Seine before the sea . The tide is felt up to Rouen as evidenced by the variation in the level of the Seine.
Since their development, the quays of the Seine , in addition to their certain charm, offer pleasant walks where pedestrians, joggers, cyclists meet. In good weather, it is pleasant to bask on the deckchairs, picnic, go to the museums on the banks of the Seine or sit down on the terrace of a cafe to enjoy this pleasant and lively landscape .
I like to go through the quays when the weather is nice to get to the Right Bank, watch the barges go by, the cruise ships with its enchanted tourists. A pleasant "show" that always puts me in a good mood because the people we meet are smiling, friendly.
Let's take a walk in pictures ...
"Boieldieu bridge"
This bridge is a work of art on its own with the busts of the great navigators of the past, overhung at each entry by massive statues.
Downstream, it is an allegory of the river and upstream, of the sea. Indeed, this place marks the boundary between the river port and the seaport since the Middle Ages . On the right bank, the sculpture is from the sculptor Jean-Marie Baumel : one represents the Vikings sailing on a drakkar and the other the Rouen navigator and explorer Cavelier de la Salle sailing on a nave to America , the crews are recognizable by their wigs.
Name given to the bridge in honor of François-Adrien Boieldieu, opera composer born in Rouen on December 16, 1775.
If Normandy inspired the Impressionists who left us superb works, Pissaro painted the Boieldieu Bridge opposite in 1896. Painting which is in the Museum of Fine Arts of Rouen.
"Men build too many walls and not enough bridges." -Isaac Newton-
"God gives us hands, but he doesn't build bridges." -English proverb-
"Bergère O Eiffel Tower the herd of bridges bleats this morning." -Guillaume Apollinaire / Alccols Poems (1898/1913)-
"The best teachers are those who know how to turn themselves into bridges, and who invite their students to cross them." -Nikos Kazantzakis-
"I like to call myself, with a certain pride, engineer of bridges and songs" -Guy Béart / The JDD (June 16, 2013)-
"The majestic equality of laws forbids the rich and the poor from sleeping under bridges, begging in the street and stealing bread." -Anatole France-
"He who cannot forgive others cuts himself off from the bridges he will have to cross, for every man feels the need to be forgiven." -Thomas Fuller-
"When a new regime is established, he starts by inaugurating the bridges, the stations, the airfields that his predecessor has built, and then he denounces the imperiousness of it." -Pierre Gaxotte-
"There are men with no mission but to act as intermediaries; we cross them like bridges, and we go further." -Gustave Flaubert / Sentimental Education-
The Vickings & Cavelier de La Salle statues at the entrances to Pont Boieldieu
Vasco da Gama - Discoverer of the Road to India
Vasco de Gama 1469-1524
Marco Polo:Merchant - Venetian explorer
Marco Polo :1254-1324
Christopher Columbus: Genoese Navigator
Christophe Colomb : 1451-1506
Fernand de Magellan: Portuguese explorer
Fernand de Magellan: 1480-1521
Jean de Béthencourt: Explorer and Norman conqueror
It was in 1999, during the Armada of Rouen , that the sculptor Jean-Marc de Pas produced in front of the the visitors the busts of the conquerors: Jacques Cartier , Cavelier de la Salle , Christophe Colomb , James Cook , Fernand de Magellan , Jean -François de la Pérouse and Marco Polo . During the Armada of Rouen 2003 , he completed the busts with those of Jean Ango , Jean de Béthencourt , Vasco de Gama , Verrazano and Amerigo Vespucci .
"The weather is nice under the bridges ..."
...Be careful, I did not say that it was good to live under it ...
"The spirit of the castle is the drawbridge." -René Char-
"If the man were a river, the woman would be the bridge." -Arabic proverb-
"A fable is a bridge that leads to the truth." -Antoine-Isaac Sylvestre de Sacy / Verestomathia Arabic-
"The bridge is a donkey, legs apart, peeing in the river." -Guilleré-
"Life is a bridge, cross it, but don't fix your home there." -Saint Catherine of Siena-
"In painting, a mysterious bridge between the souls of the characters and that of the viewer is established." -Eugene Delacroix / Journal-
"Students, don't show up for the bac anymore: take the Tancarville Bridge!" -Francis Blanche- NB: "Bac", in French, is the final studies certification(A levels) and also a ferryboat on rivers to cross from one bank to another.
Le "Scenic Gem" under the Corneille bridge-
Fairy lights from the Corneille bridge
"Once upon a time there were the boatmen ..."
This Titanic must not sink!
"A boat is a beauty and a mystery wherever you see it." -Harriet Beecher Stowe / The Pearl of Orr's Island-
"We loved exotic music, the banks of the Seine, barges and walkers, the dubiously silly little caboulots, the desert of the nights." -Simone de Beauvoir/The Force of Age (1960)-
"Parking: Attracts butterflies in front of a boat." -Max Favalelli-
"The lord is the boat, the ordinary people the water: the water carries the boat or capsizes it." -Chinese proverb-
"It's the pilot who sees far away who won't cause his boat to capsize." -Amenemopé-
"Nature teaches man to swim when it sinks his boat." -Saït Faïk Abasiyanik / One point on the map-
Nice view of St Catherine's Hill for the boatmen.
"The boat is freedom, not just the means to achieve a goal." -Bernard Moitessier / Tamata and the Alliance-
... and sail on earth
"Boat on Land" 835 Promenade de la France Right Bank
"Up and at 'em children!"
"One day, a reflection in the Seine ..."
"Staging on Seine"
"I paint things despite myself... A swimmer for me is already a drowned man." -Marcel Carné / Wharf of the Mists-
"Your memories are veiled At the front of the boat And this wharf that moves away To a new world A life that stops For a day that begins It may be a chance (...)" -Patrick Bruel/Coffee of Delights- "Quai Jean Moulin"
"You never bathe twice in the same water, as the Greeks, the Japanese or I don't know which people are supposedly wise,say. You never bathe twice in the same water, even if it flows as slowly as the Seine at the end of my garden." -Michel Bussi/I must have dreamed too hard (2019)- "St. Sever's Wharf"
"Hangar 106" 106, Jean de Béthencourt's quay.
"It's a bridge I see if I close my eyelids The Seine turns with its tragic totons O drowned in his gnarled arms how do one sleep It is a bridge that goes away in its stone lodges Rounded rests form the festoons" -Louis Aragon/The Peasant of Paris sings-
"The Seine carried lumpy patches that stopped at the piers of the bridges and dissolved into firmaments." -Robert Desnos/Freedom or Love (1927)-
The Flaubert bridge -The 6th bridge of Rouen-
"Know that in life man must cross a very, very narrow bridge, but what is essential, the most essential, is that he is not afraid. Not afraid at all." -Rabbi Naham of Brazlaw-
Panorama XXL Boisguilbert quay, 14Bis, Pasteur avenue
"Tributes"
on the banks of the Seine
Tributes
"God made man in his image, the exhibitionist pays tribute to him." -Jacques Prévert / Fatras-
"Hypocrisy is the homage that truth pays to error." -George Bernard Shaw-
"Only those who have personal ideas are able to pay homage to the ideas of others. Only one who is able to pay tribute to others deserves a tribute." -Arnold Schoenberg-
"Impregnable"
views from a balcony of the Quay of Paris
Rowing club -CNAR- 20 Industry Street Lacroix Island
The rowing club of Rouen
View on Mathilde bridge and Bonsecours city
View of the Corneille Bridge and the administrative city.
"Under the bridge..the Seine river "
"Earth and Seine"
View on Lacroix island
"Sail on the Water" the tug on the Seine
"Contrast"
" Spring "
on the banks of the Seine
"What a winter ! I saw the Seine to Rouen completely taken; it is the third time only that , in my long career , I enjoy this Hyperborean show ."
"The barges on the Seine quays"
"My father is a sailor in this barge,
my mother says peace is loved
in this stupid husband "
-Boby Lapointe-
The floating houses of Lacroix Island
The "Speranza"- "Navigating is an activity that is not suitable for impostors. In many professions, one can delude and bluff with impunity. By boat, we know or don't know. Woe to the cheats. The ocean is merciless." -Eric Tabarly/Memories of the Sea -
The "Polaris" "The world is a boat abandoned by its crew." -Mordecai Roshwald/Level 7 (1959) -
The "Polaris" "The boat docked. Piraeus greeted him with his natural agitation throwing his thoughts into the generalized hubbub where they were lost." -The Chess Player (2005) by Bertina Henrichs-
"The boat is safer when it is in port, but that's not why the boats were built." -Paulo Coelho/The Pilgrim of Compostela (1996) -
"What the youth needs is to be told that there is a boat under construction in its own mental dry dock, and that this boat is destined to go to sea." -Aldo Leopold/Almanac of a County of the Sands (1949) -
The "Polaris" "A boat is just a pile of wood and metal, son. The only heart he has is that of those who sail him." -Peter May/Bird hunters Island (2009) -
The "Polaris" "Raise the anchor, disappeared the shore, facing the empty horizon, feelings of anger and pity are as useless as a boat without a sail." Douglas Reeman/Cap on Glory (1968) (under the pseudonym Alexander Kent) -
"It's a house, not a houseboat." -Welcome to the Ch'tis-
moored at the "Halte Nautique" on Lacroix island
-Click on photo to see the page-
"Winter docks"
That morning I was.
If some dream of wealth, that day I felt the richest, it was a dry cold, the sky was foggy, the water of the Seine seemed to smoke and, I had the docks for myself, alone ...
I probably seemed a little crazy to walk alone to photograph a nature that might have seemed sad to others. I found it flamboyant, warm with its trees in fiery clothes, the bare benches, the teeming city so close and yet so distant as if the fog drowned out its noises.
Even the usually numerous runners on the quays seemed to have taken a break this morning, most certainly surprised by this sudden cold.
Who should I thank for this special moment? ...
Nature surely.
"Under the bridges"
"Men build too many walls and not enough bridges." -Isaac Newton -
"The best teachers are those who know how to turn themselves into bridges, and who invite their students to cross them." - Nikos Kazantzakis -
"On the euro banknotes, on one side there is a door, on the other, a bridge. It means if you don't walk through the door, all you have to do is throw yourself off the bridge." -Anne Roumanoff / The Euro -
"Benches"
"The lovers who kiss on the public benches
Public benches, public benches
By saying pathetic "I love you"
Have nice little faces. "
No lovers who are kissing on benches, just a lover of nature
A space of greenery in the heart of the city
"When you see what the pigeons did on this bench, you have to thank God for not giving the cows wings." -Regis Hauser / The walls laugh -
"Step by step"
"One day you would like to die and the next you realize that you only have to go down a few steps to find the switch and see a little clearer..." -Together, that's it (2004)/ Anna Gavalda-
"The steps and the rope as a railing. We hang on to the ropes and look where we set foot." -Wonderland Avenue (2002) /Michael Connelly-
"Why is it encouraging to progress one step, and discouraging to climb four steps to go down three?" -Free Barabbas (1957)/Gilbert Cesbron-
"My island "
"I found my treasure island. I found it in my inner world, in my encounters, in my work." -Hugo Pratt-
"Friendship is an island of ethics in a morally free world where all are at war with everyone." -Francesco Alberoni-
"If you want to go out to sea, without any risk of capsizing, then don't buy a boat: buy an island!" -Marcel Pagnol-
"Colors"
In the link below, you will discover my pictures of gardens, flowers, trees as I wander around.
"Nature comes to the rescue of all abandonments; where everything is missing, it gives itself whole back; it blooms and revered on all the collapses; she has ivy for stones and love for men." -Victor Hugo/The Laughing Man (1869) -
"Love in the old men has strange roots, And finds, like an ivy at the cracks of the ruins, In these hearts ravaged by time and evil, One hundred gaps where to push his tenacious twigs." -Emile Augier/The Adventurer -
"Since he has known love, ivy can't help but climb balconies." -Aphorisms under the moon and other wild thoughts (2008)/Sylvain Tesson-
"Architects hide their mistakes under ivy; doctors under the ground and housewives under mayonnaise." -George Bernard Shaw -
"As if by magic"
View on the Butter tower
View on the Cathedral
Quays of Paris
That morning, I met only hurried mothers taking their children dragging their feet to school and a few workers plugged into their headphones, unaware of what was going on around. Some people raised their heads when they saw me taking photos but without too much interest except perhaps that of saying that I was crazy to take photos at this hour when they dreamed of being still in bed ... but the morning light is so beautiful and the places still empty of too many people ... I love the city in the morning.
"Like a barge on the water ..."
"Bycicles on water "
"It's a house, not a houseboat!" -Welcome to Les Ch'tis -
"You have to have the courage in life to leave your houseboat, otherwise you sail along the water acting as if you were in a movie and you die without having gone anywhere but to the cinema." -René Fallet-
"The lord is the boat, the ordinary people the water: the water carries the boat or capsizes it." -Chinese proverb -
"Nature teaches man to swim when it sinks his boat." -Saït Faïk Abasiyanik / One point on the map -
"Seagulls are born from handkerchiefs that are waved at the start of the boat." -Ramon Gomez de la Serna / Greguerias -
"A boat is a beauty and a mystery wherever you see it." -Harriet Beecher Stowe / The Pearl of Orr's Island -
What is a river without its source? What is a people without their past?" -Victor Hugo-
"The marina is a place designed so that sailors who do not go to sea can meet holidaymakers who do not have a boat." -Philippe Bouvard -
"Square Guillaume Lion"
"History is a perpetual restart." - Thucydides -
"Each tombstone covers a universal story." - Heinrich Heine / Marengo-
"Peace is the history of the wise, war is the history of men." - Richard Burton -
Photos in the Square Guillaume Lion by clicking the link below .
"Boildieu bridge"
"Men build too many walls and not enough bridges." -Isaac Newton-
"The best teachers are those who know how to turn themselves into bridges, and who invite their students to cross them." -Nikos Kazantzakis-
"The majestic equality of laws forbids the rich and the poor from sleeping under bridges, begging in the street and stealing bread." -Anatole France-
"There are men with no mission but to act as intermediaries; we cross them like bridges, and we go further." -Gustave Flaubert / Sentimental Education-
"On the euro banknotes, on one side there is a door, on the other, a bridge. It means if you don't walk through the door, all you have to do is throw yourself off the bridge." -Anne Roumanoff / The Euro-