Honfleur -- Parisien Get-Away Town

Honfleur is a quaint small town located on the southern bank of the estuary of the Seine River. Its harbor is connected to La Manche (English Channel) on the eastern part of the 25 mile coastline called the Côte Fleurie (Flowery Coast).  

Honfleur has warm summers, cool winters, rain year round, and just a few extremes of temperature. It is a perfect setting for strolling its medieval quays and streets, shopping at boutiques, eating steamed mussels, munching an apple tart, and drinking local cider.

Originally built for trade since its harbor was protected from the sea, Honfleur became a popular 19th century setting for Impressionist painters like Courbet, Monet, Boudin, and Jongkind (known as the Honfleur School) because of its ever-changing light, colors, and picturesque quays. Some art historians believe that impressionism originated in Honfleur. Click here for samples of paintings.

Honfleur is still popular today for artists but Parisiens also find it an appealing quick Sunday get-away or weekend jaunt. The 115-mile trek from Paris takes about 2 hours by car although several daily buses run to-and-from Honfleur taking up to 3.5 hours.

 

The streets of this medieval village are narrow and paved with stone. Formerly called the Chemin du Roi (King's Road), the main commercial street was renamed Grande Route Notre Dame (the Great Way of Our Lady) in the 14th century. Today, it conserves its dynamism with artists' studios, boutiques, and restaurants.

 

 

 

A couple teachers from my group (Anna, a Russian who lives in Calgary, and Simone who hails from Melbourne) and I stopped for lunch at this restaurant and boy, are we glad we did! We had the local fare: steamed mussels in wine and shallots sauce and a side salad and frites (French fries). Mussels are also available with a cream sauce à la Normandie. The mussels are served in black pots: one with the mussels (a lot of them) and one for the shells. We also tried a local sweet aperitif called pommeau, which is 2/3 apple juice and 1/3 calvados (apple brandy). It's called a "girly drink" because of its low alcohol content.

 Normandy is an apple-growing region and the orchards have yielded two highly-prized drinks: pommeau  and cider. Alcoholic cider is made from 40% calvados (apple brandy). Here is a "ciderie" on the street and a shop that sells gift bottles.

    

In 1670, two salt barns were constructed by order of Colbert, First Minister of State to Louis XIV. They contained 11,000 tons of salt used for preserving fish. The bulk of the salt came from Brouage, which is located on the edge of the marshes of the Marais-Poitevin near the west coast of France.

An important regional centre with its wealth based around the salt industry, Brouage was the first important salt-trading town in France, and also the leading port for the salt trade that employed thousands of people. The walls of these Honfleur barns were constructed with blocks of chalky limestone and wooden vaulting, which resembled a ship's hull.

 

 

 

 

These 16th and 17th century houses are half-timbered with slate-covered roofs. The house on the right was owned by Alexandre Dubours (1821-91), a French artist who painted ships, seascapes, and cityscapes. 

 

Sainte-Catherine Church

The largest wooden church in France, Sainte-Catherine Church, was built after the Hundred Years War in the second half of the 15th century. It was modeled after a market hall, and because it was built by shipbuilders, it uses naval construction techniques to make the ceiling, which resembles an upside-down ship's hull. The church has a bell tower separate from the principal building so that if lightening struck the tower, the people inside would not get hurt. Once lightening did strike the tower and a fire in the bell tower occurred. Afterward, a second nave was added in the 16th century. The roof is partially covered with chestnut shingles.

The famous "Axe masters" of the city's naval yards created this church without using any saws, just like their Norman ancestors and the Vikings before them. The beams used for the pillars of the nave and the side walls are of unequal length because there were no oak trees long enough to construct them uniformly. Some beams have a footing of stones varying in height, and some have no footing at all. 

 

 

The small side chapels of the church are adorned by statues of recent saints including Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (right), who is highly revered in France. There is also a painting depicting the Martyrdom of Saint Denis of the Nativity. St Denis is the patron saint of Paris.

 

 

 

 

History

The first written record of Honfleur is a 1027 reference by Richard I, Duke of Normandy. By the middle of the 12th century, the city had become a significant transit point for goods between Rouen and England.

During the Hundred Years War between England and France, Honfleur was captured and occupied by the English in 1357 and held until 1450. At the end of the war, the city became a major trading port that would last until the end of the 18th century. After 1608 as explorers developed territories in the New World, Honfleur became an Atlantic seaport with a thriving trade with Canada, the West Indies, the African coasts and the Azores. The city also became one of the five principal ports for the slave trade in France along with Nantes,  Bordeaux, La Rochelle and Le Havre. During this time, the rapid growth of the town saw the demolition of its fortifications built by Charles V (1364-80) on the orders of Louis XIV's First Minister of State Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1661-83) whose  administration had an enduring impact on the country's politics and economic mercantilism.

Honfleur fell out of favor after the French revolution (1789-99) and the First Empire (1804-15). It partially recovered during the 19th century by trading wood from northern Europe. However, silting at the entrance to the port subsequently hampered trade and the alternative development of the modern port at Le Havre ultimately closed trade. The Honfleur port still functions today for yachting, tourism, and small fishing enterprises.

The population of Honfleur has ranged between 7,400-10,000 since 1793. Today, it stands at 7,425 inhabitants. The stately Hotel de Ville (above) is the seat of a canton around Honfleur including several neighboring communes.

 

Samuel de Champlain and the New World

Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635), a French colonist, navigator, cartographer, draftsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler, made 21 trips across the Atlantic Ocean. He founded Quebec and New France on July 3, 1608. He is honored with a plaque in Honfleur where he launched his explorations. 

Champlain was the first European to describe the Great Lakes, and he published maps of his journeys and accounts of what he learned from the natives. He created the first accurate coastal map during his explorations, and founded various colonial settlements. He formed lasting relationships with the Montagnais and Innu and other tribes further west as he learned their languages. He wrote the first ethnographic observations of the Wendat Confederacy during the winter of 1615, which form the bulk of his book Voyages et Decouvertes faites en la Nouvelle France, depuis l’année 1615 published in 1619. (The Confederacy comprised four Iroquois-speaking bands of the Huron Nation--Rock, Bear, Cord, and Deer bands--that countered the Iroquois Confederacy.) In 1620, he returned to Quebec to become Governor of New France, in compliance with the orders of Louis XIII. He established trading companies that exported goods from Canada, mainly fur, and oversaw the growth of New France until his death in 1635. He is memorialized in many places in northeastern North America, most notably by Lake Champlain which lies on the border between New York and Vermont.

 

Pont de Normandie

The Pont de Normandie spans the Seine River and links Le Havre to Honfleur for over 7,031 feet. The upside-down y-shaped pylons are made of concrete 705 feet high and 2,808 ft between the two of them. The longest bridge in the world at the time of its opening on January 20, 1995, the Pont de Normandie is the last bridge over the Seine before the river empties into the ocean. Construction took place between 1989-95.

A cable-stayed road bridge with a semi-fan system was chosen because it was both cheaper and more resistant to high winds that can blow over 186 mph. Before it was constructed, the only bridge crossing the estuary was the Pont de Tancarville located ten miles away from Le Havre. To accommodate the exponential growth of traffic between the two cities, the bridge has four traffic lanes, two pedestrian lanes, and two bicycle lanes in a width of 77 feet.

Michael Virlogeux (1946-), a structural engineer, worked with two French architects, François Doyelle and Charles Lavigne, to create this impressive bridge. Virlogeux also built the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge over the Bosphorus in Istanbul, the Vasco da Gama Bridge in Lisbon, and the Millau Viaduct in southern France.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honfleur is a much-cherished place, and people show their affection for it by putting a padlock on an anchor located on the quay near the parking lots.