A Maritime Town from Centuries Past

Today we engaged the trains and automobiles part of my manly contribution to this trip, leaving Paris by train, renting a car in Rouen, and ending the day in Honfleur. This is a sailing town across the mouth of the Seine River from Le Havre on the northern end of the Normandy region of France. The town is at least 800 years old, and the open-sea fishing craft in the marina have given way to pleasure craft, many from across the channel, but marinas always carry a mystique that will not die.

I haven't been able yet to find a good history of this building, but right at the edge of the marina was what appears to have been an early inn.

This inn was complete with something I don't think I'd ever actually seen before--an organ grinder. In a concession to the times we live in, the monkey was fake, but the organ itself was real, and the music actually enjoyable.

In this view of one of the really old alleys, the building on the right is one wall of the second church in town, built in the 1300s. One of the lasting impressions one gets from travel outside the USA is a grasp of what constitutes "old" in the rest of the world.

One thing the new sailors bring is money, and one consistent marketing strategy to encourage the movement of some of that money is style. If you present the right style, you can attract some of that money, even if it's not the most expensive spot in town. For instance, after we selected a middle-of-the-road price range for dinner, Anita applied one of her simple tests for where to settle in for the meal: who has the best flower arrangements? We got orchids.

Everyone wants a piece of history.  One of Honfleur's uncredited claims to fame is the very early work done on the screw-drive propeller system that dominates navigation today.  Frederic Sauvage used the marina to prove the efficiency and effectiveness of this technology, but failed at the marketing of his idea, got no lasting credit, and spent much of the end of his life in debtor's prison.

Honfleur was fortunate to escape the horrors of World War II with no damage.  Tomorrow we'll head back to Rouen for a look at another fortunate site, Notre Dame of Rouen, a masterpiece of Gothic cathedral architecture, and one of Claude Monet's favorite subjects.  We'll also crack open our copy of Les Plus Villages de France (The Most Beautiful Villages of France), from which the URL for this blog is taken, and see if we can find a special little village to share with you.