Honfleur, the Count and more

My B+B room at La Liniere in Honfleur

The twisty staircase at the B+B

Timbered home in Honfleur

Honfleur harbor

One of oldest churches in Normandy

Inside the tiny church. Small wooden sailboats hang from ceiling

Bells of the church that ring every 15 minutes

Mouth of the Seine

Garden of Honfleur "personalities"

Another Honfleur personality

Composer Erik Satie's home, now museum

Normandy beach with evidence of roads built in the water

U.S. cemetery

Chateau Bouceel, our shared bathroom

My room at the chateau

Mourning portrait of Charlotte, the count's grandmother, made with snips of her hair

floor of the bedroom

Linda looking happy to be out to dinner, away from the chateau

Cucumber salad with tomato coulis

Wonderful salmon dinner for 8 euros

monastery at Mont Saint Michel

Mont Saint Michel

Chateau kitty enjoying my cashmere scarf on the bed! She purred the entire time even while asleep!

Another great restaurant recommended by the Count run by husband and wife

We arrived in Honfleur 10 days ago after arriving in the busy old port town through the back way. I asked some young school children (4th graders?), how to get to the town center. Even though their French was rapid fire and I had to ask to hear the directions again, they were spot on for getting us into the city and we were able to find our B+B up the hill, overlooking the port and very modern bridge. The B+B was a nice old brick/stone house built about 1875. We had two rooms on the top floor and we were the only guests. It is run by a father and son which was surprising as it obviously has a feminine touch and breakfast had all the accoutrements of a Victorian meal including flowers on the table. Croissants and baguette with butter and jam with some juice/tea/coffee was the standard fare for breakfast. Linda and I were craving a little more protein like an egg or yogurt, not that the croissants are difficult to take. With Rick Steves always accompanying us wherever we went in Linda's bag, he guided us on a couple great walks in Honfleur. One was just up the hill from our B+B through some "woods" or more like underbrush to a nice view over the mouth of the Seine. We walked further with Rick to a tiny old church (1400's) and the cutest one we have every seen. It was designed in a
cross shaped, with stain glass windows and had tiny wooden boats hung everywhere from the ceiling. The bells of the church played a pretty tune every 15 minutes and were not in the bell tower but outside the church hung on a wooden structure. Some of the bells had the theme
of the sea carved on them. The other great walk in Honfleur was along the sea wall. Adjacent to the 
sea wall was a large garden with "personalities" set amongst the foliage. The personalities were busts of well known past citizens of Honfleur including Eugene Boudin, the artist and Champlain, the explorer who discovered Quebec City after sailing out of Honfleur. The harbor of Honfleur is very picturesque and the town has numerous timbered old old buildings. The eccentric French composer Erik Satie lived there and his house where he was born is now a museum of his life and music. I learned about him when my piano teacher and friend Patti, who gave me one of his pieces to learn, "Gymnopedie". He wore only identical grey flannel suits and had about 28 of them when he died in 1928. Unfortunately the museum was closed when we were there. 

We left Honfleur after spending two nights there and moved on to the Normandy beaches beginning at Arromanches. We watched footage of WWII at Normandy in a 360 degree viewing theater. We visited a couple of the beaches, one that still has remains of the "road" built on the water for the transferring of equipment. We visited another museum with artifacts on display such as what a soldier would carry in his 75 pound pack and saw the US cemetery. Incredible that 10,000 US soldiers died in Normandy. One of the films at the museum profiled individual American men, which made it all the more personal and moving.

Wanted to visit the famous tapestry at Bayeaux but it was getting late and we needed to get to the Chateau Bouceel about 10 miles from Saint Mont Michel before dark knowing that it was in the middle of nowhere and could be difficult to find without GPS on our car. We arrived at Chateau Bouceel just before dusk and were greeted by the Count who owns the chateau or as he said "sometimes I feel like it owns me". The Chateau was built in 1763 took 18 months to build and is the third building on the site. There is an ancient family chapel and a Boulangerie that was used by everyone in the community to make bread. The land and chateau have been in his family on the Count's mother's side from the beginning. The Count's father was arrested in the entryway of the chateau during the French Resistance in WWII. The chateau was occupied by German soldiers during the war, while the Count's mother and grandmother continued to live there. The chateau is very large, with grand rooms, a sweeping staircase and many old paintings of previous generations. Linda and I had two rooms with a shared bathroom between the bedrooms. The rooms are named after the family members who had occupied the rooms, so ours was named "Charlottle", the Count's grandmother. There were two large oval paintings of his grandmother and grandfather (facing my bed) plus many personal articles remaining in the room such as powder, several framed mourning tributes made out of the hair of the deceased and hair brushes. The room has tall ceilings, large windows, a fireplace, the old French intricate geometrical oak floors and a modern bathroom. When we were shown to our rooms, there were dozens of dead flies on all the window sills, a few in the bathtub, one on my bed etc. The count said that they had already been vacuumed up three times earlier that day, that they were seeking warmth inside since the nights had cooled. Linda was wondering why the flies were buzzing around actively one minute and the next minute seemed lethargic and then they died. She was hoping that that will not be our fate! The French are frugal in many ways and one of those ways is with their use of electricity so the long, long dark hallway of the chateau with closed doors on both sides down the length of it, is very dark with about 25 watts of light "illuminating" it. Yes, there is an additional 10W of light added when one turns on the hallway switch but it's on a timer, so one must not linger. At one end of the hallway is a baby bassinet with a form overhead from which gauzy fabric comes down on both sides. It's location is right outside Linda's bedroom door and she finds it creepy. The Count made Linda and I dinner reservations at a wonderful family run restaurant very near Mont St. Michel. The menu was all in French and I had to run out to the car to get what I though was an exhaustive list of all French food translated to English made by the chef Patricia Wells. There were many things on the menu not on the list but it was enough for us to make selections. We ended up with thin slices of cucumbers bent artfully into flower shapes with tomato coulis in the center of the designs and wild caught salmon, probably from Scotland. Delicious!! Best meal, thus far of the trip! Then we had a tasting of Normandy cheeses. It was dark by the time we made our way back to the Count's chateau. True of French ways, the outside lights were motions lights only, so we had to quickly enter the code for entry and make our way upstairs and down that long long dark hallway to our rooms. Wifi would not work in our rooms upstairs, so I had to make my way down the grand staircase in the dimly lit chateau for email. (Also, twice during our stay, my iPad indicated that it was "disabled", and to try again to use it in 15 minutes! Never encountered that before, or since.) By the time we were set for bed, Linda and I were totally creeped out and spoke of checking out of the Count's chateau early the next day, though we had booked two nights there. Instead, we were able to pass two nights in the chateau by leaving the bathroom lights burning all night while we left our bedroom doors open to leave them partially lit!

At the Count's suggestion, we visited the formerly walled Brittany town of Dinan for a couple of hours which was charming and then made our drive to Mont Saint Michel, and the ancient Abbey at the peak of the rock formerly surrounded by water but now has a causeway to it. The tides at Mont Saint Michel are said to be the most dangerous in France and one needs a guide to walk in the nearby sand as there are areas of quicksand. The Count had suggested that we visit the Abbey an hour before closing (6pm) so that there wouldn't be crowds. Well, there were times while wondering through the often dark, cavernous Abbey, that there were some people, any people to keep us company! This set us up for our second night at the chateau with the bathroom lights burning! We had another great dinner at a small family restaurant, about a 10 minute drive from the chateau. The wife waited the few tables and the husband was the cook. We had another wonderful dinner. We survived our second night in the chateau but were up early ready to depart the creepy place. A highlight was the chateau has two cats one of whom made herself at home on my cashmere scarf that was lying on my bed. Kitties do like their comforts! On to Nantes, a 2.5 hour drive to send Linda back to Paris on the train and me to spend some time with Bri.