More on last week’s trip to the Normandy region…

After over 8 hours of driving from Montpellier, we finally arrived at the French Bethel branch in Louviers, just in time for the Monday night Watchtower study.  Although it was completely in French, I was still able to follow along, thanks to the Simplified French edition.  After that, we were able to check into our guest room at Bethel.  Actually, since we were traveling as a family, we were able to get a guest house(!!!).  It was super cute – a little 2 story home on Bethel property in the cute Normandy-style architecture.

Our Bethel guest house

Towel Origami by our Housekeeper

Sunrise from our Guesthouse. I would have loved to lounge in those chairs if it wasn’t so cold!

Sunrise over the Residence Buildings

The next day, after waking up at 6am for morning worship, we took a tour of the Bethel branch.  This Bethel branch doesn’t do any shipping or printing – it mainly does translation and direction of  preaching work in France and some French-speaking countries.  Therefore, our tour was pretty limited, but it was still nice to explore around and visit with friends.

Louviers may be the only Bethel branch with train tracks running right through the middle of it…

Shirts at the Laundry department

Only in French Bethel would they have a “Couture” room! I was disappointed to learn that it was just a sewing room…

After taking the Bethel tour and eating a Bethel lunch (complete with wine!), our friends drove us to the nearby town of Rouen.  Downtown Rouen is super cute, with many buildings in the Normandy-style architecture, completely different from the architecture found in the south of France.  It was very colorful, and very old.  But interesting to see, nonetheless…

Looking up in Rouen

After this, we headed into crazy Paris.  More on that to come…