Dear Friends of French Affaires,
As usual, we have the heat and humidity challenge during the US summers. Pretty much everywhere. So, it was pleasant to enjoy open windows at night, upper 50s, maybe 80F during the day, on my recent trip to Normandy.
France has not, of course, been immune from the summer heat (and fires in the SW). Paris had a couple stints of canicule (heat wave), getting up to 104. I can recall a couple occasions in Courances and in Paris when it got this hot. We purchased a floor unit a/c that worked reasonably well. Elizabeth bought me a kiddie pool and I’d fill it with the (extremely cold) spring water from our well. It did the job for a quick cooling-off.
Maud Hacker (and her daughter Louise) and I did a four-day repérage (scouting trip) to reconnect with old friends, hotels, guides, restaurants, and just pleasurable jaunts across the Normandy countryside. I visited Lisieux and the Basilica built to honor the much-loved Sainte Thérèse. It is a stunning, colorful, uplifting tribute. And full of worshippers on a clear humidity-free Sunday morning.
As many of you will know, this is a trip that had to be postponed twice due to covid. One can’t help but be grateful to see the mask-free return to former days. I rented a nice Mini-Cooper and it was just the right size to negotiate the narrow lanes of the Eure, Calvados, and Seine-Maritime départements.
This is a trip centered in Honfleur, the delightful harborside village with its picturesque pleasure craft, restaurants ringing the port, and historic church (oldest wooden church in France). We stay at a celebrated “relais et chateâux” right on the seaside. It’s a ten-minute walk to the port.
Sites include Étretat, Rouen, Jumièges Abbey (reached by ferry ride), the celebrated Jacques Garcia’s lavish restoration, the Chateâu du Champ de Bataille. Maud’s guide friends are helpful entrees into special corners of his project. We spent a full day at Bayeux, the American Cemetery, Omaha Beach, tasting the local dish parmentier at a restaurant facing the stunning cathedral, washed down with Normandy’s trademark cidre. Mont Saint-Michel and the gardens of Brécy round out this wonderful Normandy trip.
I saved a couple of days for myself after Maud headed off for her seaside vacation, as well as two days in Paris. I was able to swing by our home in Courances and our excellent market town, Milly-la-Fôret, and then up to Hotel Duc de Saint Simon. We have a good group going to “Paris at the Holidays” and I wanted to make contact with the owner of La Cuisine, for our cooking school event. She is an old friend of Elizabeth’s and we shared memories over a long café time, on the Right Bank across from Île Saint Louis. So many treasured times for Elizabeth and me and all her French Affaires friends.
If you have interest in going on this trip, I am scheduling it for mid-September 2023. I encourage you to look at the Instagram photos and if you want more information, please email me. It will be a bonne continuation of Elizabeth’s fine handiwork.
Bien á vous
Chris