LeHavre

LeHavre, Lets Celebrate!

Birthday time.

Ok so I decided to turn a business trip to Portsmouth into a weekend in LeHavre. What a great idea. The workshop was great and we got a tour if you could call it that of the Airbus facility. It is a small facility but interesting.

I decided to sign up for Uber to make sure I could always bail out and get a taxi in a heart beat if I needed it. Sometimes public transportation is not what you would like it to be, or it just is getting to dark to muck around with the buses and trains.

So I was in the Airbus parking lot just about to click on the where am I Uber app and I look up and there is a bus stop. Hold your horses. I walked over to the bus stop and here comes bus 20, check it out, yes it is the one I want to Spinnaker tower. Trying not to be to stupid sounding, I ask a girl at the stop if this is the one to Spinnaker Tower, a pretty well know landmark. That was a close one, she said no, the one you want is over there. She points across 4 lanes of traffic going the other way. So what does a normal unhinged American do.... run across all four lanes flagging down the bus to stop. Success, I did not even get run over. I should admit it was rush hour and the traffic was at a stand still.

Bus driver was wonderful, especially when I asked him if he could let me know when to get off at Spinnaker Tower. He semi rolled his eyes and said, you mean the big white tower you can see for miles around. Then he laughed and assured me I would not miss it.

I had a lot of time to kill before I needed to catch the 23:30 ferry to LeHarve. So I strolled the esplanade at Spinnaker Tower or the Flat as the locals call it, and watched the sunset. Found a place with a chandelier to have birthday dinner and got mac and cheese, Lockwood classic and NY cheese cake. Delicious;)

It was getting dark so I needed to find my way to the ferry. Was a little concerned that it would be in the less nice part of town so off I went to the bus station. Always remembering I have Uber in my pocket. The direct bus had stopped running by the time I got to the bus station so I took a circuititous route. It left me with walking a bit and under tunnels and such to get there. All went well.

Got to the Ferry Station and it was big open grand building with no one in it except 2 ticket sellers and me. Think of Grand Central Station empty, very strange. I went to the ticket counter, no line, inconceivable, and checked on status of ferry, everything checked out. So I sat down to wait. Got there a bit early, (that is a Gale thing) but 3 hours early, a little neurotic or maybe moronic. Both words seem to fit. That was fine because it was late and dark and I did not want to be roving around the streets of Portsmouth past 10. OK that is paranoid , I can live with that.

So I was waiting for the ferry and another boarding seem to come with a horde of kids in the boarding lane. The sign said Caen, but it was late so I went and asked. The attendant said, no that was not my ferry that I would be getting on the next one at 10:45 and I would be the only one.

Now this kinda freaked me out. Why was I the only one on this ferry, sounds a little crazy, am I going somewhere no one really wants to go........I questioned her further and she said most people drive on and do not walk on. Still it was a little disconcerting. So I waited and an attendant came up and got me and took me through security, no line, patted me down, put me in a car and drove me onto the ferry. Very curious, but it worked. This I think was the first time since I have been in England that I did not have to que, very strange.

I had a nice room with a bathroom and shower and a view of the night. Went into the lounge and no one was there. Bought a tea, and EU plug and tried to watch for the new military ship that was just commissioned and supposedly in the harbour. Could not see a thing besides my reflection. Hopefully I will see it on the way home. Worried a little about the return trip as a gale is due to hit from the remnants for the three hurricanes swirling around the Atlantic. They assured me if there was an issue the trip would be cancelled and I would have to stay another day in Leharve until things sorted themselves out. Oh darn, what a shame another day in France.

I went back to my cabin, found my EU charger of course since I just bought one, but had a wonderful night sleep, no snoring, midnight bathroom trips or growling dogs to wake me up. Why do I do that, i love them all dearly. The speaker announced at 7:30 we would be docking in an hour. I had plenty of time to shower, dress and break fast with coffee ceme, that is as close as it comes to latte, and un crescent while watching the sun rise over the bow at 8:00. Which on retrospect it was Monets Impression Sunrise as I got to see it later for real;)

Now you may ask where is LeHavre? Well for you Michiganders it is like going from Ludington to Milwaukee . And most people here ask why would you go to LeHavre? It's like going to Detroit. Kinda of funny what frame of reference does to perspective . The Brits thought I was a bit off.

Waiting to get off the ferry I was rolled over by MAMILs , strange animal , seems to be all over England and a few escaping to France. Middle Aged Men in Lycra!!!!! Wonder if they have had their shots?!?!?!?

Had my trusty pink umbrella and finally got off the ferry, this colour umbrella comes in pretty handy when you have no idea who you are meeting. No one else is going to have a pink umbrella, once I figured out how to get off the boat. That was no easy task. It seems that overnight everyone stopped understanding or speaking English and only knew French. Not sure how that happened. ...Once I found my bus I was escorted on my private bus through the ship then harbor station and found the terminal and Eric snoring in his car, he had to wait so long. Sorry, Eric, the AirB&B owner took my luggage to the apartment.

Walked the embarkadaro and saw a rainbow made out of shipping containers and then a double rainbow appeared above the containers. Amazing, thank goodness for the " sunny intervals" or there would be no rainbows.

I then took off for the MuMa. The amazing thing was they opened at 7:30 am. Only in France. Saw the most wonderful painting of Monets Impressions of a Sunrise a repeat of the mornings sunrise on the ferry, special. There were many other delightful paintings. Eugene Boudin, and Raoul Dufy, I will have to do some reading on them. Spent most of the morning enjoying the art.

Raoul Dufy

Eugene Boudin

Monet

Everything I need is on the embarkadaro. My apartment, the MuMa, Tourist info center, boat tours, suspension gardens, very convenient. The tricky thing now was getting the key and finding the apartment. English is sort of a thing in France but not really. I found the instructions from Eric to that the apartment read, and I quote, "do you want I let the keys to Guillermo, the Boss of the bar beside "Le Bon Retour"? I sused this out and got the keys from Guillermo and asked him where the apartment was. Un, deux, trois, ok I know french numbers but apparently not well enough. I got to meet a few other apartment fellows as I tried to unlock the wrong doors. I went back down to Guillermo and he apologised for his bad english, and I for my bad french. I thought he said 3rd floor,2nd door. And then you have the confusion of Americans calling the first floor different than the French and English. Ground , 1, 2 or just 1,2,...What he meant was 1st floor, 2nd door. Which is not the American first floor but one floor up, is what they think the first floor is. Now if you understand that you are a better person than I. Sorted that out by having Guillermo close his shop and escort me to the flat. I had a great view of the harbor and la manchon, the sleeve as the French call the English Channel.

Having successfully got in to the apartment I decided to take a hot bath and relax before starting out on a tour of the town. I was just settling in to a hot bath and the door bell rang. I jumped out of the bath and wrapped in a towel and opened the door. Who said I had any common sense at this point. It was Eric and he wanted to make sure I got in as we were texting back and for on how to get into the apartment. Oops, nice of him to check on me.

Having coffee creme on the board walk then off to the suspension gardens at noon. Very hard to get a table at a cafe without and smokers. They are everywhere. I went outside and there was no one there, thought I was safe. No one was even inside the cafe, pretty safe that there would be no smokers. Then the owner came outside right next to my table to have a smoke. Just can not win.

Quite the hike to the Jardin Suspension, finally got up the mountain side and came to find out I read the French wrong . It closes for siesta at 12 it does not open at 12. Need to relearn the numbers, but most important how to pronounce them, un...

The grounds are open anyway, just the green houses are closed. Expansive views of the La Manchon and LeHavre harbor.

Beautiful landscaping , and just my luck found a comfy red chair to sit in and waited for a sunny interval. Yea, they get these in France too. Relaxed during the sunny interval then when it started to rain I left.

Made my way to town and learned some more french when buying a shopping bag. Now I know how to say 1, it is un not une. Then a man passed me and said "Beau Chapeau," I said "no par le vous france." He pointed at his head and I got it and said "merci." Beautiful Hat, made my day.

Dinner, could not decide what to do, I did manage to stop at the grocery and pick up my favourites and this would tied me over until morning but I decided to see LeHavre in the dark. Now power management is an important thing when you travel. And even if you have an extra power bar, it does not mean you switched it off before you put it in your purse. So it runs out of power the same time your phone does. The good news is I lived in the 80's before power was an issue. I can do this. Your first line of defence is look for a street that has flower baskets hanging from it and you will probably find something open, second is never ask questions to a gas station attendant, they have not been 3 blocks past where they work. Your best bet is a concierge or real estate office, both have maps. In my case I ran into a tourism office, they were open and with the benefit of speaking english.

The street I ended up on had loads of flowers and hanging baskets, was open to just walking. I was not sure if I was hungry but then ran into a cafe that was advertising french tacos. Well I had to check it out. Of course no one spoke English so I did the best I could at pointing. I picked the smallest looking thing, not sure it was a taco, burrito or just a fried wrap, then choose grilled chicken, and raclette cheese. This should be interesting. Well it came and was I surprised. It was like a thin grilled panini, with chicken , spicy sauce, racellet cheese and french fries inside it. Simply amazing. Who would of thought. Enjoyed it immensely. O Taco was the name of the place. Having walked most of the town these are quite popular items and served at many places.

One of the best things about France is that they have many more movies on Netflix than England. At least the one I want to see. So it was binge time for Outlander. I was so excited, I finally got to watch season 3 until I got to the 3rd part and it was not playing until October 3 and the next one was Oct 9. Ok, I can deal with this, back to France Oct 10th for sure!

This also meant more time to explore a few more landmarks of LeHavre. Walked downtown and found a beautiful modern library which was a stunning structure in the middle of town.

It was surrounded by a grand fountain with a suspension bridge in the background. Thought this would make a great picture. I was crossing the street, lining up for a shot and it stopped. So I thought I would wait until it came again. Well I waited for an hour, and then I was lining it up thinking it would go for a while and I just got the tail end of it. So then I took a walk over the suspension bridge and thought I would catch it on the way back around an hour later. Nope. It shoots off at variable intervals not to be caught by me. Forget that, time for coffee.

I had a near miss. I usually order something in french and end up with egg on it. How I manage this I do not know. I know the written word, oeuf and look out for it on menus. Well this place had no menu and just a waiter explaining to me what they had, i ordered something petit and did not think there was an egg. I got a super grilled cheese sandwich, cheese on the outside. Safe no egg. I then saw that the neighbour got the same thing with an egg on top, what the french have about putting an egg on top of everything I will never understand.

Sandwich with no egg

Sandwich with egg

The tour office informed that there was a harbor tour at 3:30. So on the way to town I checked it out. Sure enough the attendant did not speak English and was inclined not to want to help me. So I started pointing at her signs insistently until she came around to the front of the both and looked at what I was pointing at. It was a picture of the course of the harbor tour. And then I pointed to the time. She conceded and sold me a ticket but I still was not sure of the time. These 24 hour clocks do not stick in my head. I always just subtract 2 and take off the first number. This works ok until you get to the 20's. Lucky me the trip was at 15:30. I could do this.

As we left the harbor the poor Opti fleet did not stand a chance. I learned a few french curse words. Funny being on the other end of it.

We toured the shipping harbor and saw loads of big oil tankers and container ships .

Then we went outside the break wall and saw many sailboats from Opti's to cats racing. The wind was up and the sunny was glistening off the water. What a beautiful day to be sailing. Would of loved to sail but everyone had on wetsuits or dry suits so maybe not today.

Eugene Boudin

The evening I spent roaming the city dropping in from one venue to another enjoying music from jazz, harp, pop, classical, coral the city had a festival of music that many of the tourist locations were free to get into and music provided. It was very enjoyable.