Explore Charming Honfleur, France | Normandy’s Historic Harbor

Spend an easy relaxing day in this lovely and historic harbor town, untouched by WWII damage. Wander unscathed medieval streets, have a café lunch and enjoy the colors and changing light on the marina, see a maritime museum or an impressionist art gallery, learn Honfleur’s port history, or visit France’s oldest and largest wooden church- Honfleur has a lot to offer!

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PHOTO CREDITS
Honfleur monet https://www.flickr.com/photos/rocor/8349780027
Boudin honfleur https://jamesnudes.getarchive.net/amp/media/eugene-boudin-honfleur-voiliers115616-0e073f
Boudin museum : https://www.flickr.com/photos/brighton/5660893040
Boudinnearthebeach: https://picryl.com/media/eugene-boudin-the-beach-near-trouville-google-art-project-67b39b
Eglise St Catherine: photography by Christophe.Finot, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Eglise St Catherine front Daniel VILLAFRUELA, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Eglise St Catherine interior Nicolas Fleury-Gobert, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Eglise St Cath ceilings photography by Christophe.Finot, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Today we’re making a quick stop in charming and beautiful Honfleur in Normandy, one of the most popular places to visit in all of France. It’s a perfect place to visit! If you love impressionist art, if you love marinas and sea-fairing history, medieval streets and unique churches, do not skip Honfleur. This beautiful and historic harbor town on the banks of the Seine Estuary has so much to love in terms of history and art and just straight up gorgeous views. The light is so gorgeous here that it inspired painters of the late 1800s and early 1900s to paint in the style of what we now call impressionism, and so much so that Honfleur is actually called the birthplace of impressionism. Monet himself painted beautiful scenes of Honfleur, and his own mentor, Eugene Boudin was born here. You can actually visit the Boudin Museum, where there are amazing impressionistic art pieces including over 200 from Boudin himself. You can also visit a lot of museums and art galleries here. There is a museum of the childhood home of Eric Satie, who is the famous eccentric composer born here in 1866. Going back to medieval times, this very harbor was a supply point for William the Conqueror to have goods shipped over to England for resupply after he beat the English at the Battle of Hastings and claimed England and made himself King of England as well as duke of Normandy. It was a sendoff point for famous explorers including Samuel de Champlain, who set off from here in 1608 to discover and found Quebec City in Canada. It was a strategic harbor at the mouth of the Seine right up until the 1800s, when the harbor here was actually majorly silted in by the creation of the giant port of Le Havre across the Estuary here, and we did not go over there, but if you go over, you’ll cross the amazing Pont de Normandie Bridge, built in 1995, which was originally the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world at the time–over 7,000 ft long. The main attraction here really is just this gorgeous harbor, and you can sit at little outdoor restaurants, we just grabbed a cafe here and had a coffee and just took in the stunning view, but if you love to see old churches, there’s a very unique church here called the Eglise Sainte-Catherine, which was built in the late 1400s. It is the oldest and largest wooden church in France. It was built by French shipwrights, and since they didn’t know how to build a church, but they did know how to build a boat–they basically made the upper part of this church like an upside down ship’s hull. It’s beautiful and unique, definitely worth a stop to come in and see this church. And you can also visit what is called La Lieutenance, which is the home of the royal governor for Normandy through the 1600s. This beautiful building also holds part of the one of the original two gates from the old city of Honfleur. It’s built into a wall here. There’s a museum you can pop into on sort of the main area called the Maritime Museum in an old church as well. This one doesn’t take too long to walk through. I don’t think it was much to get in, about 12 euros maybe, but it’s a nice little museum inside an old church where they have some of their maritime history, and you can see some of the seafaring equipment and things like that, so that was a nice little stop if you have time to pop in one little museum while you’re here. Make sure you take time to peek down some of these lovely back streets and look into these amazing views of the old part of Honfleur. This is some of the stuff I find the most fascinating in these old towns, just these views of these ancient buildings and these little stone cobbled alleyways and archways. It is wonderful that Honfleur historically has suffered relatively little damage throughout the centuries, so it’s really lovely to wander. It changed hands several times during the Hundred Years War, and it was really just a major trade hub–it was one of France’s five main ports in the 1600s and beyond, until the blockades during the Revolution sort of ruined its economy. It had only somewhat recovered that before it was silted in due to the modern port going in across the river, but it was very fortunate to not suffer any damage during World War II. The British liberated this without any combat on August 25th of 1944, so it’s just a terrific place to wander and see some of the variety of museums that you’ll find in this small town, see the harbor, have a lunch, and just enjoy a perfect day in Normandy. Thanks for watching and we’ll see you in the next video.