After finishing our week of cooking classes we flew out of
Bordeaux to see Dale’s great uncle and aunt in Highcliffe in Dorset. While in England we caught up with Wolff and Janice (who we
had met on the Star Flyer). They live
very nearby to John and Vera and so we had dinner with them at a local pub when
we arrived on the Friday night.
We spent a lovely couple of days with John and Vera and on Sunday went out to their favourite restaurant, called The Cloud. We have been there before and it is great to see how wonderfully the staff treat them.
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| (Great) Aunty Vera and Uncle John |
The weather was beautiful on the Sunday so we went out for a morning run and ended up following a public track through a golf course, then following the cliffs above the beach before running along the beach. Everything was bathed in early morning sun and lots of people were out for their morning walk. Glorious.
On Monday we flew back to Paris and drove to Trouville-sur-mer.
On Monday we flew back to Paris and drove to Trouville-sur-mer.
Trouville is on the Normandy coast and is in the Calvados
Department. It is on the western side of
the Touques River and Deauville is on the eastern side. Deauville is quite well known for its horse
races and because it hosts an American Film Festival every year. Deauville is tres chic, with lots of
designer name shops, and is often referred to as the 21st
arrondissement of Paris.
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| Canine haute-couture at Benneton Deauville |
Trouville is older than Deauville and started to become popular in the 19th century when
well to do Parisiens decided that it was healthy to come
here and bathe in the sea.
However the primary reason for coming to Trouville was to
explore the Calvados. We wanted to
explore a region of France that we hadn’t been to before and when I read that
both the Camembert and Pont L’Eveque cheeses come from the Calvados we decided
that we had to visit. In addition, the
region is famous for its apples and produces excellent cidre and calvados,
which is an apple brandy.
We’ve had a very sociable time here. Anthony and Dennis stayed 4 nights (they are
also on a 3 month holiday), Coby and Rolef stayed for 2 nights and Manuela
stayed for 4 nights, overlapping with Coby and Rolef.
We’ve done some wonderful sightseeing and have sampled the
local produce. Yes that means that I’ve
been tasting a lot of calvados and we’ve been eating plenty of Pont L’Eveque
cheese. We prefer the Pont L’Eveque to
Camembert because although they are similar the Pont L’Eveque is a little
stronger. It also tends to be
non-pasteurised which I think means that you get a genuinely more milky
taste. Let’s just hope we don’t get TB.
We have walked around Deauville and Trouville a couple of
times. Whereas Deauville is very chic
and ‘propre’, Trouville is eccentric. There are magnificent 19th and
early 20th century mansions lining the beach but there is absolutely
no uniformity of style. At that time people were interested in a range of different architectural
styles so they built whatever fascinated them.
Trouville is also quite a fishing town and you can see
boats coming into the harbour each evening to unload and sell the day’s catch.
There is also a seafood market that runs along the harbour.
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| At low tide this river drops extremely low and all the boats in port rest fully aground on the mud |
The weather has been mixed, which is to be expected at this
time of the year (the Normans continually make jokes about their bad weather). We’ve had some lovely sunshine but also some very heavy rain.
On Wednesday last week we drove to Bayeux to visit the
tapestry. We decided that it should be
called an embroidery rather than a tapestry but it didn’t disappoint. You can’t help but admire something that is
nearly 1000 years old and which tells the story of the Norman conquest of
England in such vivid detail. Thank you
to Helen and Julia for advising us to make sure that we stopped and searched
for the rude bits in the margins at the top and bottom.
After viewing the tapestry we drove to Arromanches which is
where an impressive artificial harbour was built for the D-day landings. They also built one at Omaha Beach but it was
destroyed in a bad storm after a couple of days. This one held and in the days following the
initial invasion the Allies unloaded 2.5 million men here. You can still see
some of the amazing watertight cement chambers that were sunk on a semi-circle to
create a break water.
We went up to a museum overlooking the harbour to look at
these cement chambers that still encircle Arromanches. Then we watched a 30 minute movie about the
D-day landings that is shown around you on 9 screens forming a circle. The movie managed to convey a lot of
information and also emotion in a very short time and without much
dialogue. I’m still thinking about the
37,000 Allied deaths, and presumably a similar number of German deaths, that occurred
in only 76 days. You can also see the
impact of the bombings that destroyed so many towns in Normandy. A lot of very old towns were substantially
destroyed.
I think that in one of the British World War 2 cemeteries
there is a nice plaque that links the Bayeux Tapestry and the D-Day landings by
saying 'We, once conquered by William, have now set free the Conqueror’s native land'
On Thursday we got up early and went into Paris early for a
day of shopping, and what a day it was!
It takes about 2 hours to get into Paris by train from
Deauville-Trouville. Dennis described
the Deauville-Trouville Gare as very handsome, which I thought was a wonderful
description.
Even though we spent Thursday shopping, the purpose of the
visit was actually to visit Penny a former MTC colleague of Dale’s who is
living in Paris with her French husband Alex.
We also visited Penny in 2009 when she was living in Alsace.
Before meeting Penny we traipsed all around central Paris
including to a number of old ‘Passages Couverts’ that we learnt about from our
French teacher, Murielle, in Melbourne.
These are charming shopping arcades that were built in the 19th
century. We were able to combine
sight-seeing with shopping, which is a heavenly experience.
We also made sure that we picked up falafels from L'As du Falafel
in the Marais. We had learnt about
these wonderful falafels from Penny 4 years ago. After joining the line it started pouring rain but there were still 2
long queues, one for take away and one to dine in. We stood in the street under the restaurant's umbrella's eating our falafels. It wasn't very elegant but they tasted great.
Penny and Alex live very near to the Marais so we met Penny
at a café in the Marais where we chatted for a couple of hours before dropping
all our shopping bags off at their apartment and heading out to meet Alex for
dinner. Alex is a commercial lawyer so
we met him nearby his work in the 16th. We stayed the night at their apartment. Have a look at the spectacular views of Paris
rooftops from their bathroom.
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| And by 'from bathroom' we mean taking a leak, so more for the men than the ladies |
On Friday we headed back to Trouville on the train.
On Saturday morning after a lazy start we drove across
to Dives-sur-mer to the Saturday market.
Dives-sur-mer is where William the Conqueror sailed from to conquer
England but the harbour has since silted up and it is now inland. I had read
that the Saturday market is held in a covered medieval hall, so I was
interested in seeing it. The hall is
impressive and so is the market.
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| Dennis, Anthony and David collecting tarts and quiches |
In addition to supplies for cooking (some very tasty
chanterelle and cepe mushrooms) we bought quiches for lunch and some tasty
tarts and pastries for dessert. After
shopping we drove to Carbourg and wandered around town and along the beach
before heading back to Trouville via a cidre and calvados distillery. We drove along some fascinating
back roads, covered by a canopy of trees growing from each side of the roads, that
were barely big enough for our Peugeot 208.
Dale, Manuela and I returned to this area for a lovely randonee the
following Thursday.
At the distillery we enjoyed sampling the cidre and calvados
but also discovered ‘pommeau’ which is like a port but made from apples.
As it is now outside the peak season quite a lot of sites
are closed but I discovered a couple of chateaus that are open on
Sundays. The first one we visited is
called Chateau de Vendeuvre and was built in the 17th century so
there isn’t anything particularly Norman about it. However we loved it and
spent several hours there. It has
fabulous gardens, including little water surprises, as well as a collection of
miniature ‘everythings’ including some exquisitely carved wooden models.
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| A very fancy high chair |
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| Yes, a dog kennel/stool - they had at least 10 different kinds |
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| Fancy bed pans |
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| Yes, the 'Water Garden of Surprises' was a Benny Hill delight |
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| The family collected minatures, many of which were prototypes built by craftsmen before doing the final piece |
Afterwards we drove to Chateau de Crevecouer which is typical
of middle ages Norman half-timbered buildings.
There was also a very old pigeonnier (pigeon house or dovecote) and
barn. Although we were very interested
in seeing these buildings they were not as interesting as Chateau de Vendeuvre
because they were owned and restored by the family of two brothers who invented
drilling methods for identifying where oil is located, so the buildings had
been turned into museums about them and drilling for oil. Having said that, there was an interesting
documentary about how these half-timbered buildings were constructed. It was more interesting in theory than
practice for me as I slept through most of it but Dale was captivated. And I did learn the main points: that the
walls were constructed with a mix of mud and hay and that the foundations were
4 corner stone blocks, into which the timber frame is placed in order to
prevent the timber rotting. The primary reason for this technique was that
Normandy has limited mineral resources. However, even
though Normandy is poor in mineral resources, it has been a very wealthy region for a long time because of its ability to produce so much cattle,
dairy products, fruit and cidre.
On Monday we thought
that we would try to do an 8km walk in the environs of a pretty village near Pont L'Eveque. Although it had been raining lightly, it started to rain heavily about 10 minutes into the walk. Our first mistake was to decide that we’d keep
walking for ‘a bit’ in case the rain lightened – it didn’t. Second mistake was to try to take a short cut
back to the start but actually go in the wrong direction (not helped by our paper map disintegrating in the rain). We eventually arrived back at the car
absolutely soaked (even wearing our very good hiking rain jackets) and beat a hasty retreat home to await the
arrival of Coby and Rolef in some warmth.
They arrived about 5 in the afternoon and we had a lovely time catching
up and having dinner together.
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| Dinner with Coby and Rolef |
Manuela also arrived by train later that evening. Coby, Manuela, Dale and I met in language
classes in Aix-en-Provence 4 years ago.
We have seen Manuela in Argentina in 2011 and Coby and Rolef in
Australia, early in 2012, but it was lovely to be together again. Coby and Rolef have a nephew who runs a hotel
and some gites, with his wife’s family, near Bordeaux. Coby and Rolef were on route there to look
after the properties while his nephew and the rest of his wife’s family go on
holiday for a couple of weeks.
Tuesday was clear so we took the opportunity to pile into
Coby and Rolef’s Renault Grand Scenic to see Honfleur, drive
across the Pont de Normandie and visit the cliffs at Etretat. It was a perfect day of vacation
sight-seeing. Honfleur is a lovely old
town with an absolutely beautiful port. I
also think Honfleur is a beautiful sounding name. It was once one of the main ports in France
and it is where the expeditions left from to explore and settle Canada. After wandering around we stopped to have
some coffee by the port and then drove to Etretat via the Pont de
Normandie.
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| David, Rolef, Coby and Manuela |
The Pont de Normandie runs across the mouth of the River Seine
and links Honfleur to the much bigger industrial port of Le Havre and at the
time it was opened in 1995 it was the longest cable-stayed bridge in the
world. In 1998 a Japanese bridge was
opened that is even longer (fame is indeed fleeting).
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| Thanks to the panoramic sunroof in the Scenic, I got a series of shots as we passed under the arches |
I had never heard of Etretat but Alex (Penny’s husband in Paris) and our proprieteur here in Trouville independently recommended that we should go there to see the cliffs. It was well worth the visit and we all really enjoyed wandering along the beach and up the cliffs.
We stopped and had lunch by the beach. Coby, Rolef and
Manuela enjoyed that most Norman of dishes, ‘moules et frites’ (mussels and
French fries) washed down with cidre.
In the afternoon we drove back to Deauville and wandered
along the beach front in glorious sunlight.
As Deauville holds an annual American film festival, all the permanent
beach boxes are (largely) named after Hollywood glitterati.
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| Cheeky sparrows play hide and seek in the hedges |
Unfortunately it poured for much of the following day but
this didn’t stop Manuela, Dale and I wandering around the Trouville market after
Coby and Rolef left. Then we drove down
to Lisieux and decided that we would take refuge in the Cathedral
devoted to Saint Therese in order to avoid the pouring rain.
Saint Therese is the co-patron saint of France with Joan of Arc and
Lisieux is a major Catholic pilgrim site. The church is massive and can apparently
cater for 4000 people. It is very new (relatively
speaking) and was only finished in 1954.
Most of Lisieux is new because it was bombed to smithereens during the
D-day invasion. It was unusual to see mosaics, art work and stained glass in a new building and I thought
it worked pretty well. I was
intrigued to read that St Therese is the patron saint of florists (?), the
missions and people with AIDS. An
interesting mix.
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| I like cows too |
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| Not sure that this is very culturally sensitive |
There were lots of St Therese souvenir shops around the cathedral but rest assured we won’t be inflicting any of their wares on anyone. We found a good creperie nearby for lunch and enjoyed our Euro 14.50, 3 course meals with cidre. When Dale said to the owner that it might be more sensible if he just drank soft drink because he was driving, the owner responded that cidre is only 5% alcohol and we could have a bottle between 3 of us – so we did as we were told.
After lunch the weather started to clear in time for us to
have a most informative tour (in French) of the Chateau de
Saint-Germaine-de-Livet. This is a
charming chateau that consists of one wing which was built in the Norman half
-timbered style in the 15th century and another that was built in
the renaissance style in the 16th century. Somehow the two worked well together, perhaps
because of the mix of the local green and rust coloured bricks that were used
in the newer building. It is surrounded by a moat and although it is smaller it
reminded us of a chateau we saw in the Loire called Azay-le-rideau.
In the evening we wandered along the beach at Trouville as
the sun set, enjoying the colours of the sand and the buildings on the beach
front.
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| Returning with the day's catch |
On Manuela’s last day we decided to take advantage of
another nice day to do a 3 hour randonee around the little villagette of
Glanville. This is real horse country
and Manuela spent much of the 3 hours whispering to the horses that came to say
hello as we walked along the tiny country roads and paths that passed by their
pastures. Dale and I were somewhat
surprised when, about half way through the walk, Manuela revealed that she
doesn’t really like horses. And yet she continued to ‘coo’ them in Swiss
German, which we decided must be the language that all horses speak.
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| Someone mixed up the horses and donkeys when this fellow on the (far) left was conceived |
This was a really relaxing way to spend a few hours. There were some nice views of the surrounding
countryside, which is very green. We
also marvelled at the farm houses and gites that were very well maintained and
were either built in the Norman half-timbered style or built to resemble that
style.
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| Even now this traditional style of house is being restored |
We got up early on Friday morning (that was a shock to the
system) to walk down to the beach at Trouville to catch the sunrise.
It wasn’t particularly exciting and was very cold but I was fascinated by the extraordinary number of jet streams, pointed out by Manuela, which seemed to be stretching between London and Paris.
Next time: The last time!
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