I don't like French highways..

Well, the weather finally cleared up for a day so I got my bike together, which has been collecting a troublesome amount of rust, and headed inland. But, before we get to that I have to tell you about Fecamp! The internet at the hotel I was staying at conked out, so that's why I haven't done this earlier. So I got up the other day, Tuesday I think (I've completely lost track of time), and headed downtown. So, Fecamp is a neat little coastal fishing town with a bit of history, especially with monks and monasteries. Apparently some monk found a piece of driftwood that washed up on shore that supposedly had a spattering of Jesus' blood on it, so they built a monastery.

Actually, I can't remember if the monastery or the driftwood came first, but I do know that the building was constructed around the year 1000 or so. And it was full of dead guys.

But joking aside, this was only one of the three or four massive churches, abbeys, or palaces in town, and this is the type of town that people grow old in and never leave. Maybe the size of Penticton at the most. Oh, and I didn't mention that in riding through the countryside you can barely go 2k before seeing another cathedral. 

So after hanging out in the abbeys and strolling around town and buying a much-needed sweater, I headed to the main attraction in town. This place you could see from pretty much anywhere in town it was so tall, and kinda creepy in a Beauty and the Beast palace way.

Can you guess what it is? Betcha never will! This palace was built only about 115 years ago by a fellow by the name of Alexander LeGrand, and was built entirely for the glorification and production of his world famous liqueur, Benedictine DOM. As the story goes, this Alexander fella was rooting through some manuscripts and books his grandfather left behind that were in turn inherited from the Benedictine monks in the 1500's. Among the tomes Alexander discovered a secret recipe written by an Italian monk, Dom Bernardo Vincelli. After years of study and experiments LeGrand finally managed to recreate the original formula and started selling it to the world! 

Unfortunately the story was a total sham and was just a publicity stunt, but it sure made for a cool experience! The palais also houses LeGrand's personal collection of ancient artifacts, which are most definitely real. Over the years his ancestors also contributed, making it a pretty impressive gallery.

One kinda neat thing is the hall of counterfeits. Over the years as the spirit gained popularity, hundreds of people tried to recreate his recipe which led to Alexander spearheading the European copyright protection agency. Here's but a few fakes they've collected.

So then we proceeded to the cellars where they actually make the stuff, my favorite part. These cellars are actually part of the original production facility that was on LeGrands personal home. The current palais was built after his last factory got blowed up by arsonists. 

After the tour, they let us taste one of the three products they make, and I chose the Benedictine 10-year Oak Cask. Pretty unreal stuff, and you can ONLY get it at the distillery. Sorry Mark, I was gonna send a bottle home but 50 euros on a budget just wasn't justifiable! 

This is the oldest bottle of Benedictine known to mankind. And I forgot to look how old it was.

After that, the fog finally went away! Still cloudy, but not foggy! I finally got to see what the town actually looked like!

All in all, it was a pretty neat place. Oh, and they have awesome ways of getting boats into water.

Way faster and smarter if you ask me! 

The next day saw an end to my time in Fecamp and the Alabaster Coast. I loaded up and decided to bike after all, as the sun was just starting to peek out. I took advantage of that and biked 66k to Rouen in one day! On the highway. Not a good idea, I got some pretty dirty looks. However, I got a much better view of the countryside.

Pretty much yellow as far as you can see. The only real eventful thing that happened was on the way into Rouen. Apparently I picked the only freeway that you weren't allowed to bike on and got a lot of honks. So I proceeded to haul my bike over the barrier and into the brush, pretty much dragged it through a forest of thorns and stinging nettles, punctured the rear tire, tore up my pants, and gained a fair bit of rash that I'm still recovering from! But I did find a way in, found the hostel I was looking for, and now I sit writing this. I'm here till Saturday morning and this is the biggest town I've seen yet so I'll be posting in the next couple days of the cool stuff I find here. It's actually got some intense history, to the point of being the capital of France at one point I think!

Cheers for now!