Fecamp

Benedictine has always been one of my favorite liqueurs--in the heyday of my bad habits, B&B and a good cigar (preferably a Macanudo) were a favorite, a marriage made in heaven--and I've always wanted to visit Fecamp, where the brothers concocted the great spirit in the Middle Ages. Visions of alchemist/monks staggering around the cloisters, testing the latest recipes.... With a ferry to catch and plenty of things to see and do in Belgium and Netherlands, we skipped Fecamp the last time we were in Normandy. But this time, Fecamp was on our path, and, as the reader may have noted, we are in no hurry. Three surprises unfolded. One, my notion of medieval monk/alchemists and the development of Benedictine is way off the mark. Two, the real late 19th century story of developing and marketing the spirit is way more impressive. And three, it will take five blog posts to relate the experiences we had during our 24 hours in Fecamp. It's a pretty neat place, original capital of the dukes of Normandy, and much more.

We found the aire in Fecamp with relative ease, and an
especially choice spot, right on the marina on Quai Sadi
Carnot; most of the aire is in a giant parking lot beyond 
the marina; I counted 125 RV's at the aire in Fecamp 
that night; free, of course

Out walking now, looking across the marina to our rig

A few blocks away, the Benedictine Palace...palace? you ask;
yes, we'll get to that in a separate post, where I visit the Palace
while Vicki does the laundry on Sunday

We decided to defer on the Benedictine Palace for the
time being and are walking down Rue Theagene Beaufart (I
swear I am not making that up), and I am about to announce
this is the most boring street in Europe when

We see the Villa Emilie, done by the architect
Olivier le Begue, an incredible Normandy Art
Nouveau specimen, worthy of any of the great
designers of the era

Detail

Ditto; note the balustrade

Wow!

Best we have seen in these parts

We rested briefly at the church of St. Stephen,
which is 2nd or 3rd fiddle in this town

Took in the Saturday market

The remains of the ducal palace

Learned all about the dukes, who descended
directly from Rolland, the Viking chief who
settled in and took over Normandy

Reconnoitered a nearby lavomatique (lavanderia in Italian; if
you want to know any one contrived word in six European
languages laundromat is a good choice)

Then toured the Abbatiale Church in Fecamp (next post); the
big one

And then, after walking a few blocks to the station, we hopped
aboard the local navette (little bus), which, for a euro, gave us
a complete tour of old Fecamp, from cliff-tip to cliff-top (another
post), and returned back to the aire; a long but good day