Le Havre, France (British Isles Cruise)

Unfortunately, our port stop in Edinburgh was canceled due to weather/strong seas, so we had an extra sea day.  

Our last port was in Le Havre, France in Normandy.  Nate rented a car for us, and we drove about 40 minutes to Etretat. It is a famous seaside town, known for its dramatic white chalk cliffs, including the Porte d'Aval arch and L'Aiguille (the Needle). (You can see the arch in the distance below).  

Claude Monet painted Etretat over 80 times, in some very well-known works.  They placed displays of a couple of the Monet paintings to show what they looked like against the current reality of the landscapes.

 

There were machine gun bunkers built into the hillsides along the beach by the Nazis during WWII and an interesting display describing the tunnels that connected all the bunkers, the barbed wire, and the mines that were in place back then - a very different scene of the landscape from when Monet was painting or now.  During the D-Day allied invasion of Normandy, Etretat was not one of the primary landing sites (they were mostly further to the west).

 

 

We hiked along the cliffs.  I was hoping we would be able to spend the day at the beach, but the weather was a little chilly, so we only hiked.  The views were impressive though!

 

Derek wanted me to photograph how awesome he looks running.

The architecture of Etretat along the beach district was charming.

 

 

We were lucky enough to have the time to also visit the town of Honfleur.  It is famous for its 17th-century harbor and medieval, half-timbered buildings dating to the 1400s. The narrow streets of the oldest section of the city had 600+ year old buildings. It was amazing how well preserved it all was. 

 

Lydia is standing in front of the detached bell tower of the Église Sainte-Catherine (Saint Catherine's Church). The church is the largest wooden church in France, built by shipwrights in the late 15th century after the Hundred Years' War. The bell tower (belfry) is separate from the main church building, a design choice made due to concerns that the marshy ground could not support the weight of both the heavy structure and its six bells.

 

The interior of the church was interesting because of all the wood.

 

Lydia and Derek also got to ride on the carousel. 

The Honfleur harbor was strategically important because it marked the entrance of the Seine River which leads to Paris.   

Honfleur was a very vibrant city and I was surprised how much I liked it.