from Honfleur, Normandy: reconsidered

We pick berries on the morning of my last full day in Normandy. That is, we pick the small pack that looks most excellent among the many in the stall.




How can they be regional? Has the Wisconsin berry season begun yet? Oh, give me the coastal moderate climate any day!

Maybe I am especially pining for climatic moderation on a Saturday morning because here, like in Madison, it is market day. Except here, unlike back home, the markets are screaming bounty!



so much to sell!




gossip over mussels and cider




market greetings


I can’t buy much. Early tomorrow, I’m returning to Paris. Sort of. (Just outside the city.) Where I will move ahead with all sorts of work and nonwork projects. At least, that is the plan.

But today is all about Honfleur still. My landlady is rushing off to town to stand as an Honfleur council member at the memorial to fallen soldiers. We have a small ceremony today, she tells me.

We’re curious and so we follow her to the monument for those who died at war.




The flags are up. A small band marches toward the memorial, followed by two army jeeps. Flowers are placed among the many already there. The mayor (he looks mayoral, but it’s a guess) makes a speech and asks for a moment of silence. We listen to two full rounds of the national anthem.




It is such a small ceremony, with just a few bystanders, the Council members, a handful of very old veterans and a few men and boys in outfits that look sort of army vintage. But it is strangely touching. Traffic is stopped and the music surges up and down the street. Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons!






At the close, the marching band, the vets and the Council members march down the main street toward the port. There, they will lay another wreath to commemorate those who died in the Normandy Landing. L’embarquement – the word I had, until today, associated with planes landing on time at Charles de Gaulle airport.














The sun is out now. My friend and I make our way to the port. The dozen (two dozen? more?) restaurants along the quay are starting to fill. I’m watching Honfleur begin to take on the week-end tone of merriment. We sit in the midst of it all. I’m basking in it, filling up for the months when I cannot be part of it.

I order my last galette (buckwheat pancake) with the Normandy trio – Camembert, Pont l’Eveque, Liverot. And crème fraiche, in case I think there aren’t enough calories on my plate.





Back at the b&b, I linger in the courtyard garden (the sun is so warm! finally!) and watch as bricks are being laid down to extend the patio.





So who comes here, to your wonderful b&b? – I ask Monsieur le Jardinière, who also admits to being the husband of the proprietor.
The English, mostly. Belgians. And Americans. Americans take two kinds of vacations in France: the south or the north. If they do the north, they go to Giverny, and then they’ll come here for two days, then the Normandy beaches, Mont St Michel, and Paris. Maybe the Loire valley. It's like that.
I like Giverny. And we’re here for more than two days…
Ah, you like to stay and explore. Like the French. But the French, we hardly see them at the b&b.
Why?
The French, they want a vacation, they pick up the phone and ask for a room. We’re fully booked for months! Americans and the English are much more comfortable with the computer. They find us early, they make reservations.
Ah, the French…
Yes, we like vacations. Americans… (and he goes off on the familiar theme of American work ethic).

I change the subject after explaining that I am very much in favor of vacations. So, how are you feeling about Sarkozy?
Negative. We have written him off. He’s out.
Really? And for what reasons?
He’s incompetent. We, here, we do not impeach like you Americans. We have the streets! The country will come to a standstill. We’ll have massive strikes. He’s out within the year. And your president, what will happen now?
Obama maybe…
We don’t know Obama, here in France. We know Clinton. We like Clinton.

And so it goes.


In the evening, I have my last Normandy apple cake.





At the b&b, Madame Lillianne asks me if I’m coming back next year. It struck me that indeed, there’s a good chance that I will pass through again. Madame and Monsieur are welcoming, gentle people. And Normandy? It really grows on you. Steadily. Expansively. Besides, it’s awfully close to Brittany.

from Normandy: the high-brow

We have passed several times through Deauville to get to Hornfleur, our home for the week. But we had never actually paused there.

Deauville. You’ve heard of it? In my mind, it is full of hoity-toity images. It’s where the Parisian rich and the European mighty go to play in the summer, no?

Worth a visit.

But first – sustenance.

When times were especially (as opposed to sporadically) rough in terms of WiFi at our b&b, the sympa mademoiselle at the Bureau de Tourisme suggested we try our luck at Le Perroquet Vert. Right here, looking out on the old port:





Le PV had served up its WiFi bounty well for one of us and now we are back, in grateful appreciation, catching a café and a croissant.

…And thinking that perhaps Le PV could stand even more appreciation, we return at noontime for a strong cup of tea (we must occasionally do the unpredictable) and a warm apple cake. With Normandy cream, to get that regional blast.




Alright, now. Deauville. The bus ride there and back is a mere half hour, so don’t think this is a long journey. [You could go there and back and not miss the end of the evening news. But not if you’re riding with me. If you’re with me, you’ll return quite late, because you’ll note that I will have forgotten (again!) to check the special note that tells you that these are the times for the navette (shuttle) rather than for the real bus, and if you should find this note yourself and ask me what it means in real words, I’d have to admit that I do not know. In any event, with me, you’ll now have to wait an extra hour until the real bus shows up. And then you’ll be fine. Late, but fine. If you get fed up with my bus catching idiosyncrasies, you can always hike. It’s a mere 17 or so kilometers to Honfleur, but the road is narrow and winding and it has buses whizzing by, of course. The ones you should be on. Trust me, it's scary.]

Deauville is a trifle less splendid than I imagined it would be. There are nice lunch salads to be had…





… and a number of Parisian stores may catch your eye. And there is a large casino and a largish hotel or two (or three, or three dozen for all I know),









...but these Normand structures do not line the seafront in the grand way that they should (according to my grand seaside town planning instincts).

Instead of grand houses, there are numerous bathing huts, and they have, peculiarly, names of older Hollywood stars. To me, that’s a singn of faded glory.





But the beach is magnificent! Walk along and nod in agreement.




still not the season

...except for children

and hardy young adults




and very hardy adults




and very very hardy adults




and lovers of undefined ages ...

We walk quite a ways and the water is nicely warm, so that shoe and sock removal is very much in order.

Yes, then there is that longer than necessary bus routine, but by evening, we are in our home town. Small town girls, returning to our base after a day in the big league.

We eat another fine dinner – moules et frites. All sweetly pretty in a port-side brasserie decked in yellows and blues. Simple food. Great food. Good to be back.

from Normandy: on this day, sixty-four years back

You are counting and so you know. Of course. Who wouldn’t remember?

We didn’t. At first.

It’s Kathy’s last full day with us and we have chosen it as the day to pool our resources and rent a car.

Easy? Not in Honfleur. For all the tourists that pass this way, I must say that they do so with their own wheels. There is no train service here. There is no boat service that I know of. There are buses, but they aren’t easy to plot and work with if you want to do more than go from point A to point B. And there aren’t really car rental agencies.

Except for Sarl Locagis. Sarl Locagis will rent you a moving truck and sell you as many cardboard boxes as you need for your big transfer. And on a slow day, Sarl Locagis will rent you a car. Thursday was a slow day for Sarl.


It was a pretty day for us. The state of the skies is best represented by a shot of the old harbor.





Nice, no? Cool, but who’s counting. We’ve got scarves.

Fishermen seem a tad idle, but that’s not weather related. We’re very aware of the tension at the moment here, in the port towns of France (and elsewhere in western Europe). Fishermen are protesting the high cost of fuel and the elimination of fuel subsidies. If you love seafood, you better visit soon because they say the current supplies are going to run out within a week.





Bonne chance, guys! Hope things settle for you soon. Love those little crevettes!

We come to Sarl Locagis a bit late. No matter. We have the car for the whole day, but we only have 100 free kilometers. That’s not a lot of driving. But, the very sympa mademoiselle at the Bureau de Tourisme noted that the D-Day beaches of Normandy are only some 35 kilometers away. They are our destination. That’s 70 kilometers round trip, with a little extra for mistakes and detours.

(Such bad math that was!)

And so we pile into the car, put on some French music and head west.
Shortly into the drive, someone throws out the idea that a stop might be nice. With perhaps a little beach time. Now, you may think that this is pretty wimpy. It speaks of poor road trip attitude if you can’t go for more than 30 kilometers without stopping.

Well sure. But frankly, we were coast deprived. Or at least I have been feeling that. Honfleur, for all its coastal glory, is really quite sheltered from coastal waters. It’s just enough around the bend in the Seine estuary that you can’t really see the sea. And on this day, driving along the coast, we are tantalized by fleeting vistas of sandy beaches and rippling waves and the desire to get out and crunch on sandy shores really takes hold.

At Villers sur Mer, we stop. A small little place, with a market and a beachfront café. Two essentials of life in this type of community, so far as I’m concerned.

It's so different from Burgundy! Look at the houses, for instance:

















So there we are, tasting sausage samples that Madame cuts for us at her stall and buying wild strawberries and thinking that life, in general, cannot be faulted.





And on the beach, we crunch sand and shells, lots of shells and we exhale.


















And now it is time to keep going. Or is it? The astute reader will have noticed that we are some 30 kilometers into our journey. The D-Day beaches are not even a mirage on the horizon. Bummer.

So here we are – at the doorstep of history and the odometer is hovering near our Cinderella warning kilometer. What would you do? Bite the bullet, of course. Even at 26 Euro cents for each additional mile. Right?

It will be a long time before I agree to such rental terms.

In the meantime, I mentally magic-brush the odometer off the dashboard and accelerate.

And now we come to the crossing of the River Ome and then, just a breath away, the Pegasus Bridge over the Caen Canal.


Exactly on the midnight of this day, in 1944, the Normandy Invasion began. D-Day. And it started with the Allied army capture of this bridge. The first soldier to die in the invasion, Lt. Brotheridge, is buried nearby. The family Gondree installed a commemorative plaque by his grave. They live in the house that was the first to be liberated during the invasion. This house.





Now a café, run by a woman who was a little girl living there on June 5/6, 1944 (no photos inside allowed).

And so by the chance of Sarl Locagis’s schedule, we stumbled on the annual reunion of World War II veterans, their families and friends, school groups, onlookers, all here now, all thinking back to a day when the weather was slightly worse and the toll on lives lost is hard now to fathom.



















Hit hard now by history, we push forward.

The villages along these Normandy shores are quiet places now. Summer homes and water sports centers draw the attention of the families who come here to enjoy the stretches of sand and water.

But there are monuments as well. And flags: English, American, Canadian, Polish. And plaques. And cemeteries.

Like for so many, D-Day images for me, come from movies. The Longest Day, Band of Brothers.

Not after today.





We picnic at Lion sur Mer, right on the water’s edge. It turns cold and a few dark clouds roll in, threatening rain.

A million men landed, a war was won. Much later, but it was won. No one doubts that it needed to be won.


Sar Locagis forgives us the extra miles. The many extra miles.


We eat well on this night at Le Breard, where plates resemble paint palates and food is presented with pomp and flair.





But it’s the Normandy cheeses, served at the end, that stay with me. Pont l’Eveque, Livarot, Pave d'Auge, Camembert. Creamy, soft and pungent, the same as they have been for so long. Centuries. Years of war, quiet times. Same cheeses.

from Pont l'Eveque, Normandy: knee-deep in buttercups

If you come here for the cheese (Pont l’Eveque: one of the most popular French cheeses, right up there, I am told, with Camembert, Brie and Roquefort), you’ll be disappointed. I mean, you can find it in stores, sure. But then, I can find it in Whole Foods, Madison. What you cannot find in Pont l’Eveque, Normandy, is a Pont l’Eveque cheesemaker.

Which is fine. Especially if you come here on a partly cloudy day, after a miserably wet one and you expect to be charmed by other Pont l’Eveque attributes. Like buttercups.

But maybe I’m jumping ahead too much.

First, you have to be told that it is the place to go if you want to see a charming village in the Department of Calvados in the Province of Normandy. Well, maybe not THE most charming village. For that, you should hike from there to Beaumont en Auge. That is absolutely THE most charming village.

Yes, fine. We can do all that. We don’t have a car, but we are so absolutely on top of things that we can work with bus schedules and we can get ourselves anywhere.


And so we set out. [Oh, wait. There is the matter of the Honfleur market. We are staying in Honfleur. The official Honfleur market day is Saturday, but trust this place (what with its artists and super with it locals) to develop, in addition, an alternative market – a bio market (meaning organic), on Wednesday mornings. How perfect! I stock up on the red treasures of the region: strawberries, cherries, apples, tomatoes, and a good and heavy bottle of Normandy apple juice.]










Oh how I love to go for a ride,
To see the country far and wide…

I hum this to myself as we climb the bus and speed down south to Pont l’Eveque. Maybe speed is the wrong word here. It’s not really a long trip, worthy of great speed. Fine, it’s a very short trip. Pont l’Eveque is a mere 17 kms from Honfleur.

We’re happy as we’re rolling along…

How true.

And so we find ourselves in this quaint old town ...which we fully intend to leave ASAP, because we really do want to get to THE most charming village in France.

So, we look this way…





…and that…



…and we head out.

Mind you. Not all of us are avid hikers. In fact, I later find out (much later: after I whip everyone along on this close to 20 kilometer round trip trek) that an alternative may have been to take a more contemplative move through the day, one which would include a lot of pauses and conversations. Like, maybe, this:




But, the skies are almost blue, the buttercups are in full bloom and the there’s the prospect of discovering all that charm. Who can pass on that!

We walk slowly at first, each taking, most likely, the same picture, but in three versions. Perhaps all of our photos look something like these:



cows, knee-deep in buttercups










And we are charmed by similar things. Like this mom donkey and her donkey kid. Can you even guess how long we spent looking at the two of them chasing each other in a the field of buttercups? (And we did it both going there, and on the return)



let's play, mommy!




oh, I'm hungry...




walk with me




not now, I'm prancing!




oh, come here!

And then, suddenly (perhaps not suddenly enough for some) we were in Beaumont en Auge. Actually what Beaumont was really sur (on) was a pretty steep hill. Which added a nice little denouement to the whole journey.

But, hills do give good views and I’ll let you judge for yourself if this qualifies. Zooming in, you can see Deauville by the Channel…

…and zooming out, you can still see the sheep. I always like sheep. Especially knee deep in buttercups.

Some people, those who live here, for instance, may find this view to be commonplace. They'll come to this spot for the quiet that it offers. A place to read a newspaper.

I'm not so jaded. For me, it's heavenly up here, in Beaumont en Auge.

And the village itself? Not sure how any of us felt about the MOST CHARMING label. Here, take a look:

It was pretty alright, but then, so many of these villages are lovely. And besides, we were too hungry to chew over the matter of labels. We wanted dejeuner (lunch)! We find the one open eatery and settled in among the men and women of Beaumont en Auge. Here, you see mostly muscled men. I assure you, at some tables, there were women. An older mother and her son, both with their dogs. A couple. And us.

The food? Here are my choices:

(The hearty men ate heartier dishes -- meats and gizzards and such; I didn't notice the plates of the mother and son, but I did note that one of their dogs liked a morcel, and French dogs are fussy so I am certain it was good.)

Afterwards, well, one had to get back. There was mention of a taxi maybe, but that thought drifted toward the sea as Beaumont was low on taxi stands. In villages of about 52, you just don’t have much use for cabs.

In Pont l’Eveque, we compensated for the absence of cheese makers (they’re all outside the town, which figures as cheese makers are often where the milk is) by visiting a Calvados distillery. We sampled the stuff, but I myself will admit to not appreciating anything that is that potent and so one of us purchased small quantities for gift purposes while the others delighted in being offered free samples of everything in very large glasses.

More fruitful shopping, so to speak (I'm feeling so clever now, long after midnight) was accomplished at a local clothing store where everything was tres cheap and billowy and cottony. Sort of like this frock (in an antique shop next door), except much more au currant:





And then it was time to leave. Except, perhaps you have not been reading this blog carefully or for a long time and so you do not know that I am notoriously inaccurate in reading French bus schedules. I always miss the pertinent piece of information, like that the bus takes a vacation on Wednesdays and this happens to be Wednesday, or that the bus does not stop at this particular stop on any evening run and here we are – stupidly waiting at evening time.

The point is, it took almost as long to finally get ourselves on the seats of a bus to Honfleur as it takes a meringue to bake to a fine crisp texture.


Back in our home town, we bought Pont l’Eveque cheese and many other things and one of us opened her secret bottle of champagne (well, not too secret – everyone at the b&b knew about it after all) and we ate and chatted until I pushed back my chair and retired, to go off and post. Loyal to Ocean readers, to the core.