Honfleur Part 1 - An Artist's Paradise

After another night at Rouen, we then travelled to a delightful, historic fishing village called Honfleur. The ‘fleur' in the name refers to a stream, and was chosen because the village is situated on an estuary where the Seine river meets the English Channel. Honfleur has its own tiny harbour that is full of boats and lined with beautiful old buildings built in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.  At the end of the harbour is a gorgeous old carousel, and over the river a ferris wheel towers over all. 

This harbour is so picturesque that many painters, including Monet, have come here to capture its old world charm and the lovely reflections of the colourful boats and buildings in the water. In fact, Monet and some of his fellow artists established the Honfleur School of Art here - this was the beginning of the Impressionist movement.  

I went on a fascinating guided walking tour of the town. One of our first sights besides the ferris wheel opposite our river ship, was a shop selling the freshest of fish of many varieties. We then wandered through much of the old town before exploring the harbour area. Around the town on that quite hot day many people, mostly locals, were eating outdoors and enjoying life. There was a festive air, perhaps because they were looking forward to their Bastille Day celebrations the next day, 14 July. 

The following photos give you a sample of the lovely sights we saw. In my next post I will show you the 15th century church at the centre of the town, and some other sights, including the fireworks display we were lucky enough to see on the next night in celebration of Bastille Day. 

I have only captioned some of the photos. I have enlarged a couple to show the beauty of the harbour. 

Our guide pointed out the three kinds of bricks used in the past centuries, all present in this wall. There was limestone, bricks baked from clay, and flint.  

A very old church along the harbour.

This building was along the harbour too. 

The beautiful carousel.

Notice the bridge at in the distance has been raised to let a boat into the harbour. 

The fresh fish shop near the river.