Saturday, May 6, 2023 - LeHavre, France

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Saturday, May 6 – Le Havre, France 

This is going to be photo heavy. Perhaps an indicator of how much we enjoyed the day.

We are docked in LeHavre, France this morning. Le Havre is on the east side of the Seine River. This is as close as a ship of our size can get to Paris. The “included” tour is Paris on Your Own. A 3-hour bus ride into Paris, a couple of hours to visit the Louvre, some free time to do your own exploring, and drive around the city of Paris for an hour or so, then 3 hours back to the ship. This is not something that sounds interesting to us. 

We are fortunate to have been to Paris a number of times. If we are going to go to Paris, it needs to be for enough time for us to visit all our favorite places. This excursion does not meet that requirement. When we were in LeHavre in 2018 on our Viking Cruise, we visited the village of Honfleur which is directly across the Seine from LeHavre. It is a delightful village and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Today we will be visiting a "Charming Normandy Village". 

First, we went to the seaside village of Etretat. Etretat is known for their white chalk cliffs. Parking for busses is a bit removed from the downtown area, so we had a nice little walk along mostly pedestrian streets to the seashore. The chalk cliffs are quite picturesque. And the sound of the sea lapping at the rocky shore was amazingly loud. It is a little misty, but we are dressed appropriately. Umbrellas are nice to keep the rain off, but when you are in a crowd of people, they can be quite dangerous. I almost got one of the spokes in my eye. Someone walking the other way and not paying attention. If I hadn’t already had my hand up, it would have been in my face for sure.

Heading into the pedestrian area. We wish the Calvados store had been open.

The old Covered Market. Still active today.

Typical Norman architecture.

Chalk cliffs looking west. And a natural arch.

Looking east

Lovely little chapel on top of the hill.

Just an interesting door we noticed as we wandered around a bit.

 

Back to the bus and on to Fecamp. In Fecamp we visited a very old abbey. The Abbey of the Holy Trinity. The building was constructed between 1175 and 1220. The outside is rather plain, but quite lovely inside. The paving stones were quite worn and seemed to have ruts from centuries of worshippers. Our final stop for the day was at the Benedictine Palace in Fecamp.

Exterior of the abbey

I found the statuary on the outside very interesting.

Prior photo shows the scale

Stepping just inside, this is the view.

Lovely altar, with chapels all around.

Old astronomical clock

The chapel immediately behind the altar.

Nice stained glass

 

During the height of the Benedictine Abbeys, the monks were looked to for more than spiritual guidance. They were trying to find a cure for what ailed the people and they were doing it through herbal medicine. In the 19th century, the recipe for Bénédictine liqueur was “rediscovered” by Alexandre Legrand. He had the “Palace” built basically as advertising for the liqueur. Part of this building is also the production facility for the liqueur. We had a tour of the facility and then a tasting. It strikes you as an old palace and for us was a bit over the top. However, the liqueur got our attention and a bottle of it is going home with us.

 

The ride back to the ship was quick. We enjoyed our guide a lot and it was a very nice day spent in the French countryside. Spring was so evident in the new greenery of the woods and all the fields just being tilled for planting.

The town of LeHavre as we sailed towards England