Le Relais du Pont de Normandie

Vieux Bassin

by sue_stone

Honfleur is a pretty town and the nicest part in my opinion is the Vieux Bassin and surrounding streets.

Vieux Bassin is a small harbour in the heart of the town. This is the place from where once ships sailed forth to discover new lands. These days it is filled with yachts and other fancy looking boats.

Surrounding the harbour is quai Ste-Catherine and quai St-Etienne. These cobbled streets are lined with beautiful and colourful narrow houses, and are home to numerous restaurants which all have tables over-looking the water.

Even if you don't dine at one of those restaurants, Vieux Bassin is a particularly magical place for a stroll in the evening, perhaps with an ice cream or just your camera.

Eugène Boudin Museum

by MikeAtSea

Located in a 19th century chapel and two modern extensions, this museum is named after Honfleur’s most famous painter and boasts an extensive permanent collection distributed throughout nine rooms. On display are works by Eugène Boudin, Dubourg, Monet and Jongkind. Many of these notable artists stayed and worked at the Saint-Simeon farmhouse on the outskirts of the city. The collection also includes work by 20th century artists associated with Honfleur, including Dufy, Friesz and Gernez, as well as Normandy head-dresses, costumes and furniture.

Honfleur - Quaint Little Traffic Jam

by JohnnySpangles

Honfleur nestles by the side of the Seine estuary in the shadow of the spectacular new suspension bridge, the Pont de Normandie. Once upon a time Honfleur was a quiet little fishing port beloved of the likes of Monet and his tutor Boudin. These two daubers would often nip over from the busier port of Le Havre on the other side of the river, spend all day splashing some paint around in Honfleur and then row home in time for tea.

This was all well and good, and they produced some pretty nifty pictures of rustic peasants and quaint fishing boats that actually looked like rustic peasants and quaint fishing boats…unlike most modern art these days that looks like a piece of string hanging from an apricot when it’s supposed to look like the alienation of the urban utopia as defined within a Kafka-esque nightmare.

Back in Honfleur, however, the trouble really started when the new-fangled steam trains started to arrive from Paris. On the plus side they bought lots of tourists to buy the paintings of Messrs Boudin and Monet, but on the downside they bought lots more artists to paint the town red, blue and ochre. Rather inevitably the Honfleur art market became saturated with unsold, and mostly unattractive, paintings covering every available square inch of gallery space. Another disastrous side effect was that, because the artists had no money to buy fish, the bottom fell out of the smoked mackerel market.

Because of these economic conditions the peasant fishermen moved out of Honfleur and pretty much every remaining inhabitant of Honfluer that was left behind was an artist. Consequently the starving artists would spend their days painting nothing but each other (as both rustic peasants and quaint fishing boats had long gone), trading canvasses and then going home to a meagre supper of a tube of French Ultramarine washed down with some Linseed Oil.

Monsieur Monet’s role in all of this wasn’t totally blameless. Being a shrewd fellow he’d recognised the way things were heading so he’d got on the train and headed off to Paris. By sitting on the platform at the Gare St Lazzare he could knock off a few canvasses on the spot and then flog them to the gullible tourists heading for Honfleur. So by the time they’d got to Honfleur he’d relieved them of their painting spending money.

It wasn’t until the invention of the motor car that trading conditions improved for Honfleur. The number of tourists increased dramatically but, rather than widening the roads and building more car parks, the clever burghers of Honfleur narrowed the roads and painted double yellow lines everywhere.

So these days, if you go to Honfleur, you will find yourself in a slowly moving snake of traffic that winds itself past all the gallery windows. So slow does the traffic move that it gives you plenty of time to spot a picture, hail the gallery owner, haggle a price and have your picture framed and gift wrapped…all without getting out of your car.

Hence why the place has a permanent traffic jam and there’s nowhere to park.

On a more serious note, it has a permanent traffic jam and there’s nowhere to park.

Eating Honfleur

by dinhyen

The town of Honfleur was of especial interest to us for a good reason. It was our second to last day in Normandie and we still hadn't had fruits-de-mer yet! So looking for a nice establishment in which to sample the Normandie specialty was our top priority. Earlier we had followed the Michelin guide's recommendations to Trouville/Deauville, but didn't find them to our liking. So we came back to Honfleur. The harbor front was lined with restaurants, so we duly sat down in one that looked promising. We did not regret coming out here, because the seafood was heavenly. What did we order? The biggest thing there was on the menu :)

Honfleur has had a long history as an important seaport. In fact, there is a plaque commemorating Samuel de Champlain. The engravings state, "With ships and crews from the port of Honfleur, he explored Acadia and Canada from 1603 to 1607. Leaving from the same port in 1608, he founded the city of Quebec". Clearly, a pretty important piece of Canadian history lies in this tiny seaport!