Honfleur, Normandy, France
The weather continues to literally shine on us. Another fine day: but a long one planned.
Fuel for the car at a local village (Pont-Saint-Pierre) was no issue: full service station that we had noticed when we were shopping at the nearby Intermache (supermarket) a few days earlier.
A good start only to be somewhat clouded when we pulled up to our first French toll plaza. Wrong lane, it only takes cards. A rather patient truck driver had to rescue us and direct us to the correct lane. We thought that we had mastered the toll dilemmas form the past. No, these came back to haunt us again. Not that I was watching, but I could imagine Fred’s consternation in the passenger’s seat, while I fiddle with buttons, scan the toll machines etc for something that will make the boom gate rise. She would be noticing all of this from under the seat, wouldn’t she ?
Embarrassing at the moment, but what a relief when that boom gate goes up !! Sometimes you need a ticket, while others you just pay by cash or card. Working out which is which, is the issue.
The motorways in France are masterpieces of “roadmanship”. Fast and flat: even hills are extensively excavated to lessen any step inclines / declines. Our exit from our E45 motorway experience brought us to the Seine River mouth’s environs.
Into a few small villages like Le Certangue and Saint Romain. The layout and house format seemed to be a little different to the more eastern parts of Normandie. We stopped and walked around in these villages and took a few photographs. Our real objective however, being the coastal town of Entretat.
This we achieved without too much of a fuss, but parking would be at a premium. One of our residence’s staff gave us a few pointers which we adopted to park our car. In doing so, we saw the classic European way of parking. A lady “bumped her way” into a small spot in one of the Entretat CBD Rues. It was comical to see. Both the cars in front and behind her, rocking each time she made contact. Some few minutes later and some 20 turns of the steering wheel, she was in.
Not sure how the cars will get out, but it would have been worthwhile filming this rather comical scene.
With a rental car, I don’t like parking in the street for this very reason. I tend to be fussy in selecting where to park. The less congested, the better. On this occasion we had to walk about a kilometre to the town centre. It costs you to park just about everywhere: I think the French are contemplating charging you to park in your own driveway.
We made the short walk to the beach: in this part of the world, typically a pebble beach. Facing out to the west was a slightly azure body of water. However, what attracts people to this seaside resort, are the chalky headlands at either end of the beach. Time and weather has produced a series of arches, bridges and offshore islands: similar to the “12 Apostles” formation found on the southern coastline of Australia. These are white in colour and not all that far from the English White Cliffs of Dover”. Perhaps they are from the same geological feature / formation ?
You can see from the pictures in the photo gallery, the two headlands do provide a spectacular scene.
England is only some 35 kilometres away from here.
The town of Entretat is a typical holiday - tourist one. Many restaurants line the foreshore along with the ubiquitous souvenir stores. Still, a place rather attractive and one worth the drive to see this.
On the boardwalk, which was bathed in waves of vitamin D surging in from the atmosphere (I must have pinched this from Shakespeare, can’t be original !!), were a couple of boards which outlined Claude Monet’s efforts to paint the Entretat headlands (1860 - 1863). More on Claude later.
From the beach, we drove the additional 40 kilometres south to Honfleur.
Honfleur is found on the southern headland of the Seine. A very old yet tourist mecca. It was here that we had lunch. Sea snails (“Welks” to the locals), and “Moules” (mussels) were the culinary target for myself while Fred had fish soup and “escalope Normandie”. A lovely Rose complimented the meal. Should Fred tell you that I had to chase the welks around the plate and in doing so, I couldn’t keep up, I must admit she is correct.
After chasing a few, I deduced that all I had to do, was wait for them to “do a lap” and so catch them on the second occasion. That’s perhaps the reason we had a very long lunch.
We sat in a small restaurant on the dock’s edge. Finding this eatery was somewhat of an exercise, as again, they generally do not take orders after 2pm !! I thought these people were French, not Irish !! I can’t get over this “siesta” time the French have: especially in a high tourism trade area such as here. I must admit though, we must be the only ones complaining. We just have to suck it up and see.
Honfleur is featured by the very narrow and tall buildings. Apparently, when it was established (again back in the 1600s) the land was so expensive, buildings were built multi-storeyed to somewhat negate the high land component.
Back to our lunch: I was going to resist eating mussels (moules), as I reminded Fred, that eating mussels for me my indeed be regarded as an act of cannibalism. She encouraged me to order these: “have the moules, but don’t have prawns.
Now that would indeed be an act of cannibalism !!”. Fred commented. I then also looked on the menu to see if there were brains: now you can determine as to whether that would be a cannibalistic act !!
While at he restaurant, Fred decided to shed some of her Australian pencil souvenirs to 2 young boys seated with their parents. This prompted a chat between ourselves and this family. They were very impressed that we were Australians. “Too far to go”, was the comment. How many times have we heard this ? The family lived in Austria, came to France for a holiday: “just for a few days, while the boys are on holidays”. The elder boy had some rather obvious knowledge of Australia: all could speak English rather well.
Our lunch was a 3 course one. Fred having “crepe” while I had the fromage plate which highlighted the Normandie 3 specialities: somewhat making up for our Camembert “no show”. The 3 cheeses : Livarot, Camembert and Pont l’Eveque. These 3 cheeses have some form of UNESCO order over them: something equivalent to a patent.
The French with their cheese and wines are quickly moving to limiting production of these specialties to the registered area: an appellation process. Just as I outlined in a previous chapter, with champagne.
While seated in the restaurant, I scanned the horizon for the French “Loch Ness Monster”: the poodle. They are a myth !!
As I have reported prior, I have yet to spot one and so I am consequently starting to think that this dog is well and truly a marketing strategy. There appears to be more poodles in Australia than in France. I have always suspected this: especially when you hear them bark, no “le wolf”. Just the normal Australian bark !!
Perhaps to respond to the French naming restrictions, we should patent the poodle breed and call them Australian poodles !! I reckon if I was to mention this brilliant strategy to Fred, she would be suitably impressed. I have given up looking for them; our time in France is fast coming to an end.
Time to make our way back. In doing so, I totalled the tolls we paid for our trip today.
Seven individual tolls ranging from €8.70 to €2.10 with a total of €35.40 ($AUD 58.00). Not bad for about 250 kilometres with probably half that distance spent on the tollways. This along with the very expensive fuel costs, makes road travel in France and Europe generally, rather expensive for us Aussies. One of the tolls €5.40 was just to go over the Normandie bridge: just a few kilometres. It is probably the tallest and most elaborate bridge I have travelled over though. We have included a picture in the accompanying photos for your reference.
Offsetting using the tollways, is the very slow driving that you have to do through the villages. Not too many fast roads exist that are not tollways.
Need to get back to our residence where the Aussies get together and swap stories about the local area and worldwide.
Au revoir.
Tim O’Brien
2019-04-21
Loving the commentary and photos