"An hour in Honfleur" Honfleur by Carmanah

We woke up to a cold, grey, October morning and left our Deauville hotel very early. Before getting too comfy on board our tour bus, we arrived 20 minutes later in the sleepy port commune of Honfleur.

Honfleur sits at the mouth of the Seine river and is small but historic and easy to explore on foot. This tiny town has been inspiration for many of France's famous modernist painters, such as Courbet and Monet. This was one reason why dropped by, for within the next few days we'd visit Monet's garden in Giverny, and we'd also visit some art galleries in Paris, like the Musée d'Orsay and the Louvre, which both feature these artists' works.

What's also interesting is that Honfleur was associated ever so slightly with Canadian history. Since we were essentially one big social studies class, our teachers would emphasize any Canadian historical content that they could. So apparently Jean Denis, a native Honfleurais, was a member in Samuel de Champlain's exploratory expeditions to Canada back in the early 17th century. Years later, trade with New France (what would later become Québec in Canada) would play a critical role in Honfleur's economy.

The most unique structure in Honfleur is L'église Sainte-Catherine, in which we were able to tour. This is the largest church made out of wood in France. It has a particularly distinctive bell-tower (which I photographed) that's separate from the main part of the church, which makes it a bit odd-looking.

After our short tour of the Sainte-Catherine church, we had a little bit of free time to explore the town on our own. Me and a few of my friends were a little bit chilly and decided to seek out somewhere where we could find something warm to drink. We stumbled upon a pub which sold hot chocolate (chocolat chaud), which was perfect on that October morning. We then met back and boarded our bus and started to head to Rouen.