Trouville

A tale of two cities. I don't need to see Deauville again. Done. But I could live in Trouville. Happily. People live in Trouville. So it appears.

Looking through the basin that separates Deauville and Trouville,
toward the Trouville casino

Trouville

Up closer

Illuminated by Neptune Himself, with fishing boats astride,
the fish market of Trouville

Thus

And thus, one of its dozen shops

I'm the only seafood eater in the family, and our refrigerator is
small, so I limited myself to 1/2 a kg of giant shrimp and 1/2
a dozen of the #2 oysters; I've never gotten much past Pierre
Franey, cooking-wise, so for the next two nights I had the oysters
and crevettes au Pernod (actually, Ricard)

Trouville casino

Flaubert liked Trouville

Too early for boules

The planches

Gotta like this place

The great posterist Savignac lived here

Thus

The usual mock-this or that; plus some interesting
architecture

Chalet Mozin, 1838; really old for this part of
the world

Stripey shops; dozens of these, but also restaurants, cafes, bars,
tabacs, grocery stores, boulangeries, patisseries, charcuteries
..a real town

Deauville

From Honfleur we drove the 10 or so pretty miles to Deauville, another of the famous late 19th century resorts. We visited briefly (no room at the inn) in 2013, but this year, earlier in the day, we pulled right into a vacant site. There are only 8-10 of them, but they are free and even have electricity. The forecast was for 86 degrees, so we dressed appropriately and boldly set forth into the land of beach planches, mock Swiss chalets, mock 1/2-timbered villas, and casinos. By the time we got back to the semi-shaded camper, it was 95 degrees.

Our little walking tour took us through the market; mostly crap

And mostly in search of beach villas, thus

What it can take to keep one of these puppies
going; but this is a nice one

More

More ditto

Architecturally interesting but apparently
abandoned...waiting for the whole block to be
turned into condo city...

A little Nouveau flourish

Most everything here is mock Swiss chalet, so instances of
other things were welcome

Entrance to one of the famous old hotels whose name was not
all that memorable...

Another such; note sign...

Bibliotheque on the beach; gotta love the French; busy, too

You can rent these little tents or one of the historic bathhouses

Thus, named mostly for American celebrities, most of whom
are now known only to us senior citizens

Another Bedouin village; note boardwalk, the planche, goes on
and on; mostly composition, not wood; Trouville (next) has the
same thing

Another beautiful low-tide beach expanse; seemingly the whole
Channel coast where there aren't cliffs

Ditto

More impressive hotels, casinos, beautiful people type things

Hard to think beautiful in 95 degree heat

En Route To Deauville/Trouville

More beautiful coast road, alternating views of the Channel, pretty villages, bucolic scenes...

A 12th century Norman church in Criequeboeuf

Nearby, hydrangeas cascade down a little water feature

Why escargot sometimes have a floral scent...

Nice little hill-side villa overlooking the sea

Available, too

Honfleur, 2015

Our second visit to Honfleur found the enormous aire de camping-cars only about 75% full, and we easily found a decent place, electricity included. (See http://roadeveron.blogspot.fr/2013/05/honfleur.html for some background). There was a Dead Battery Incident just after arrival, but a nice French family noticed our plight and lent us their battery charger long enough for us to get going again. We have decided to regard the incident as an anomaly (details on request), and, next day, things were fine. Below are some street-scene pix, few of which, hopefully, duplicate what I posted in 2015.

I was already beginning to tire of the half-timbered look; at least Honfleur's
is mostly real and mostly old

Last butcher's stall standing on Butcher's Row

Peering within

The Old Basin, a scenic place, regardless of crowds

Different perspective

Street scene

Ditto

Ditto

Let me know when you get tired of the half-timbered thing

We should have done it; but too much Impressionism is bad for
your eye-sight

Peg Leg Pierre

More half-timbered

One of but a few stone buildings, interspersed... they actually
hold the half-timbered buildings up

St. Catherine's Tower

Inside St. Catherine's; much less festive than in 2013

The Basin again

Placer mining in the river

14 Juillet And The Pont Du Normandie

We spent the 14th of July at the aire in Le Havre mostly, resting, reading, blogging. The evening's fireworks were held on the plage, a kilometer or so away, so we walked about half-way there and watched them in a nice harbor-side park with all the locals. The show started at 11PM. Fun to watch, although not Paris nor the Tour Eiffel. We'll always have Paris. 

Thus; I'll put a video on YouTube sometime

Next morning, after the usual decampment routine, we drove
up the river through the rest of Le Havre, the port, to the
great Pont du Normandie, crossing the Seine, one of the world's
great bridges; above we are on the high fly-way leading to
the bridge; I always encourage Vicki to take pix on crossings
like this

Approaching the bridge

Ditto

Climbing...our poor little 1.9 liter turbo diesel had to do it in
2nd gear

I know I can, I know I can, I know I can...

The Pont du Normandie from Honfleur; it is a "cable-stayed"
brdige, not a suspension bridge; highest such in Europe