After a week of nice, warm and sunny weather, everyboody who could escape from the city and go to the seaside was doing that, and we could not be any less. The closest coast to Paris is Normandie, so, there we went!!
Starting from banlieue, we headed (roughly) West till we hit the Seine, and then followed it to Les Andelys, where we had a picnic lunch and our first fit of compulsive picture-snapping towards the scenery above the Seine, with a short walk to the ruins of Chateau Gaillard, the 12th Century stronghold of Richard the Lion-Heart. Unfortunately, as soon as Normandy was conquered by the French, Henri IV had it destroyed.
Anyway, after having replenished our lungs of fresh air, and our stomachs of boulangerie sanwiches, we proceed to the Normand coast, and into the Calvados region. Honfleur lies at the edge between the rocky Cote d'Albatre and the sandy beaches of the 'Basse Normandie'. It's an little old town with (two) charming old harbors, and a wooden church (Ste. Catherine) dating from the 15th Century, constructed in the same style as the one the Vikings that settled here buit in the first place.
Close to Honfleur we could visit a distillery of Calvados (apple brandy), and after a quick tour along the coast, we headed North to Etretat, to visit the scenic cliffs. Once there the athmosphere reminded me of that old PC game, Lemmings. Long lines of tourists were decorating the edges of the cliffs and the seaside, for as long in the distance as one could see.
(to be continued)
(to be continued)
