Honfleur

Here I am falling behind again, so time for another post.  As Anne alluded to in her last post, getting from England to France was a bit of a nuisance because of Brexit.  We always get a French lease car under a special tax free program they offer.  You used to be able to pick the car up in London (among other European locations) and then you just took the Chunnel train when you wanted to cross to France.  They terminated that option this summer because of Brexit, so we had to rent a car in London, drop it at Dover, catch a ferry to Calais (which are carrying mostly trucks now), catch a shuttle to the lease car agent and voila, pick up our car for the rest of the trip.  It all went well, however, and we were soon underway in our nice new Peugeot 2008.  As we weren’t going make our final destination in Normandy, we had planned on stopping for a couple nights in Honfleur on the Normandy coast.

Honfleur is a picturesque fishing village on the south shore of the mouth of the Seine across from le Havre.  It’s especially known for its old port with its inner ‘View Basin’ around which tall, narrow, slate fronted houses cluster.  It’s been a favorite subject of painters for years, particularly of the impressionist movement.  And, while the weather wasn’t cooperating with intermittent rain, we did manage to explore the old town and the basin between showers.  One of the highlights of Honfleur is the Sainte-Catherine church, which is the largest wood church in France, and its separate bell tower.  The church was built by local shipwrights using naval construction techniques.  It was modeled on a market hall resulting in a church with two naves, each looking like upside down ship’s hulls from the inside.  It’s a striking building and a testament to the ship builders’ craftsmanship.  The neighboring bell tower was built separately for fire safety reasons and is equally unique.

Honfleur certainly lives up to its reputation and is easy to visit with plenty of parking in and near the old town (a rarity in many of these villages and towns).  But soon it was off to Trevieres and ‘D-Day Normandy’.