Early in the morning, I took a walk around the hotel at Luc sur Mer. The lure of an old seaside resort was all around. People clamming and walking their dogs on the tidal flat and the old village in the morning light.
| Walking the dog on the tidal flat | |
| The old buildings of Luc sur Mer | |
After breakfast we headed toward the fishing village and artistic colony of Honfleur. The drive was uneventful, except for a few wrong turns. We saw lots of back yards and dead-end roads during our wanderings today and every other day we were on the road. One thing we missed on our tour of the Normandy landing zone was the Pegasus Bridge. The bridge was captured by a British parachute Brigade the night before the D-Day landings. We crossed the replacement bridge on our way to the highway through all of the seaside resorts of the Cote Fleurie. Deauville always reminds me of the 1960s movie "A Man and a Woman." The streets of these towns live up to the name Flower Coast. Honfleur is at the Eastern end of the Cote Fleurie.
| Flowers along the road in one of the towns on the Cote Fleurie |  |
| There are artists everywhere in Honfleur |  |
| It's easy to see why. |  |
| There is a wooden clock tower in Honfleur directly across from a large church made of wood. |  |
| St Catherine is a wooden church made by the shipbuilders in the 15th century. It has a beautiful warm look inside. |  |
After lunch at a small cafe overlooking the harbor (excellent apple tarte), we hit the road to Toutencourt and our friend's house. Before we could get there we had to cross the mouth of the Seine. There is a brand new, beautiful bridge that connects the outskirts of Honfleur with the port city, Le Havre, but the bridge is long and at least one of us (the driver) voted against it. Veto goes to the driver, but when she saw the bridge she would actually cross, she wasn't much happier. It was an old suspension bridge about half the length of the new bridge. The crossing was quite calm and everyone rejoiced. After crossing the bridge, we decided we had to make time to get to Toutencourt, so we took an "A" highway (super highway) to Abbeville. The first stretch (about 6 miles long) was a toll road that cost about a dollar. The remaining 60 odd miles were free-thank goodness. We never figured out why a section of road was designated as toll road since there seemed no difference between the toll and non-toll sections.
We made a brief stop in Yvetot for flowers and other needs, and headed for Toutencourt. All went well until we tried to find D23. In France you seldom find a sign specifying the highway number. The signs tell you about SOME of the towns along a given road! The emphasis has to be on some. To find the right road you need to know most of the towns along the road since there is no guarantee which ones will be listed on a sign! We missed D23 completely the first time. When we turned onto a side road we never realized we were on D23 going back to the main highway. We ended up in the wrong lane so had to travel the main highway a distance, turn around and go back. When we came back, we knew where D23 was, but Jan went down the wrong part of the divided road. Luckily that part was only 100 feet long! We finally arrived in Toutencourt.
For our stay in Toutencourt click here .