Day Six

Thursday, November 8th 2007

Still docked in Rouen, we got up this morning to leave for Le Harve and Honfleur.  We were not sure what to expect, as neither of us had heard of either place.

We basically did a driving tour of La Harve.  The city is the largest in Normandy, and is known as the first large export port in France.  In World War Two, 5,000 people were killed during the battle of Normandy and over 12,000 homes where destroyed.  The entire city had to be rebuilt from scratch.  It wasn’t to my taste, as it was rebuilt in the modernist style by Augeste Perret.  Not to mention that we just drove through it. 

The reason we had to see it was because it is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Sight, and all tour companies who lead tourists through Normandy must at least provide a driving tour of it.

We arrived at Honfleur at about 10:30.  We did a brief walking tour to highlight some of the Honfleur sights.  The first thing that was pointed out was an ancient salt hold.  The original building was thought to be built by the Romans, although the current building only dates back to the 13th century.  It was huge, probably the size of a soccer field and as tall as a modern three story building.  That’s a lot of salt!

We walked by the past homes of several artists, most of which look exactly the same as when they lived there.  Honfleur was home at one time to Gustave Courbet, Claude Monet and Johan Jongkind.  The most famous paintings of Honfleur feature the boats in the harbor and the funny homes on the harbor edge.  These homes are very thin, and are about 8 stories tall.  The story behind why they were built this way is quite entertaining in itself. 

Apparently, a mistress of one of the past rulers (I can’t remember which, or who the lady was), loved to own land, and so the king gave/sold her a bunch of land right along the edge of the harbor.  When the people wanted to buy the land to put up housing and shops, she would only sell about 10 square feet at a time to each builder.  Thus, the buildings were very skinny and very tall! 

Honfleur is also home to the oldest all wooden cathedral in all of France.  It was interesting, but at that point we had seen so many churches, what is one more?  It was pretty nice. 

The walking tour only took an hour, and then we had three hours to ourselves.  Uniworld provided us with 15 Euros per person for lunch, and encouraged us to be adventurous and pick our own restaurants.  The only hint Emmanuelle and Dominique gave us was to look for a restaurant that was filled with locals.  They also encouraged us to try the local delicacies, mussels and Calvados.  Calvados is a brandy made from apples, the Normandy provincial fruit.  It is supposedly one of the most potent French liquors, and thus I passed.  Mom was also not adventurous about the Calvados. 

We walked all around and came across an indoor café.  It was really cold, so the indoor part was important.  We found a place offering a three course meal with a glass of white wine for 15 Euros per person exactly.  It was filled with locals, and there were no tourists in sight, so we went for it.

No one spoke any English, but that did not deter us.  We had Emmanuelle write down some French phrases to tell them what we wanted.  Mostly, we ended up pointing and grunting.  Then it suddenly dawned upon the waiter that we were English speakers, and he brought us an English menu.  Mom had the soup, I had the salad, and we each ordered mussels, mom’s in cream sauce, mine in wine sauce.  For desert course, I had a cheese plate and mom had a parfait.

The salad and soup were pretty good.  Then we were each brought a HUGE POT overflowing with mussels.  They were fabulous!  We also got a huge pot of French fries to share, and let me tell you there are called FRENCH fries because the French make them the best.  They were the freshest, tastiest French fries I have ever had.  We ate them with garlic mayonnaise, as the locals do.  The wine was tasty, and I loved my cheese plate.  We made a good dent in the mussels and in the fries, but we didn’t finish anything because it was so much food.

We exited the restaurant and took a picture of Les Boucaneers, The Pirates Café!  Should you make your way to this place, have the mussels and enjoy!  But make sure to ask for an English menu if you do not speak French.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking off our meal and looking in the shops.  Keep in mind that most of the little cities and villages in Europe, shops all close between 12 pm and 2 pm for lunch.  That means shop first and eat second.  We finished eating at about 1:30, so most places were opening up as we walked along.

After a lovely stroll, it was time to go back to the ship.  We arrived in Rouen at about 4pm, and had one hour to do some last minute shopping before we left the port.  Mom and I dashed out, buying some souvenirs, and did some Christmas shopping.  We were late, and the ship is calling for us to check in over the PA system.  We scooted in at 5:15 on the minute, which is the exact time they are suppose to be pulling out of the port. 

Honfleur was my mother’s number one favorite day (not counting Paris of course!).  If you have the opportunity to go there, you too can experience the charm this classic French town has to offer!