Normandie: Day Two

Day two of our Normandie trip started with a delicious breakfast at the hotel. European breakfasts are particularly good because the French think that any piece of food without chocolate is a wasted opportunity.

We drove from Caen to a town called Honfleur to enjoy a coastal atmosphere


There was a market right across from the tourist office, so a bunch of us started off browsing there. I decided to buy a small wallet for myself, but held off getting any of the cute jewelry.


There was also a food market, where the smell of the cheeses/fresh seafood could knock a person out.

This crab was alive.

This town was amazingly quaint. I had been to similar places in the South of France, but this seemed like a more interesting place to live if for no other reason that the weather changed about four times during the half-day we were there.




This town has one of France's oldest wooden churches--St. Catheriene's. Very pretty.


After the church, we continued to wander around the town. We ran into one of our French professors who invited us to visit the museum of a French composer, Erik Satie.

I had no idea who Satie was, but someone told me that they used one of his pieces on Conan, so I was in. If I had to describe him, I would call him a French, earlier version of Frank Zappa. I.e. Weird.


We walked into the house and got our audio guides. We were allowed to enter the first room three at a time, to be met with:

A giant, winged, light-up pear.

It turns out that this guy was friends with Picasso, and he was really eccentric, so they took his childhood home in Honfleur and turned it into a museum/experience/fun house.


After watching a really weird video that showed reproductions of the ballets that Satie had produced, we left to wander again.

A sign meaning "Nice Dog"

We went to another creperie for lunch. This region of France is famous for its cider, so it is traditional to drink cider with your crepe.

We left Honfleur shortly after lunch (where I had another ham, cheese, egg gallette) to head to Deauville.

Deauville is like the Hamptons. All the rich Parisians flee to the beaches there on summer weekends. Also, it hosts an American film festival which was going on at the time. I was going to a town where Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, and Harrison Ford were staying.

First stop was the beach. It was about 55 degrees outside, and I decided against going into the water, but that did not stop some people


I got stuck keeping an eye on everyone's stuff (I was okay with this, because I took a nap in the sun). Once I got bored, I decided to make an homage to NU out of shells.


We left the beach and checked out the red carpet. No celebrities, unfortunately.

Where are you Harrison?

After exploring the town and its rediculously expensive shops, I had one last cup of coffee before departing at this quaint little sidewalk cafe.


It was pretty hot outside, and the couple at a table next to us had brought their shih tzu. The owner of the cafe brought it a bowl of water! Adorable!

We walked back to the bus. By this time I had a raging headache from dehydration/sleepiness, so I fell asleep as we drove away. When I woke up at the rest stop, I immediately drank about a liter of water and took some advil, I felt so much better!

We got back to Paris at night. I decided to call it a night. I was still exhausted--It had been a long weekend.