Vieux Bassin, the lovely harbor of Honfleur

Late evening descends on the town

To get to Brittany from the Hauts de France region where we’ve made our last couple stops, we needed to pass through Normandy. We’ve traveled through Normandy in the past, so we made just a couple one-night stops in order to break up the trip. We never like to drive more than 2 or 3 hours a day. These were our only one-night stops of this trip. Both were very pleasant, but we’re glad not to have any more one-nighters.

First was the lovely harbor town of Honfleur, complete with loads of pretty shops, great restaurants, and a very comfortable hotel. And if Amiens offered up the largest medieval building in France, Honfleur tried to compete with the largest wooden church in the country. The Eglise Ste-Catherine was built around the turn of the 16th century after its stone predecessor was destroyed in the Hundred Years War. To save money to strengthen the town walls, local shipwrights built a “temporary” church out of wood. And there is stands today 500 years later.

We had an amazing lunch upon arrival in Honfleur, with the wooden church right behind Jim

The interior of Eglise Ste-Catherine

Taking a break in the beautiful courtyard of our hotel

Walking through a little garden, we were both hit by the powerful scent of jasmine before we even saw it

Touring the abbey

One of the “modern” parts of the abbey, added in the 15th century

Then we traveled a couple more hours to see Mont Saint Michel, one of the most iconic sites in all of France. I was actually there 42 years ago, on a high school French trip, at the tender age of 16. At the time I was blown away by the place — a soaring abbey rising from a rock outcrop surrounded by either sand or sea, depending on the rapidly moving tides. Indeed the bay here offers the most dramatic tidal variation in all of Europe. Water is said to move in and out of this bay at the speed of a galloping horse.

Mont Saint Michel made our agenda because Jim had never been here. So it felt almost obligatory. I can’t even say I was particularly enthused about coming back. But as we were approaching the area, still 5 or 6 miles away, the outline of the island suddenly and dramatically appeared on the horizon, across the fields, under a blanket of cloud and gloom. And we were both pretty stunned by how dramatic it was!

So we spent a night in the adjacent town, La Caserne; this is a mild sacrifice because, despite (or because of?) the huge tourist population here, the town is woefully absent of a decent restaurant. We trekked 35 minutes to the island, climbed the steep, busy streets packed with tourists, gift shops, pubs, and crepe restaurants. We toured the magnificent abbey at the top. And it was actually pretty amazing all over again. I probably won’t get back again for another 42 years, so we made the most of this visit to this magical place.

Approaching the area of Mont Saint Michel, we were pretty stunned when it suddenly appeared on the gloomy horizon a few miles away

Trekking toward Mont Saint Michel

Getting closer!

Much of the abbey was built in the Romanesque style in the 11th and 12th centuries

Tourists wading through the water and mud at high tide. You have to go out with a guide so you don’t get washed away or stuck in quicksand.

One of the charming cloisters in the abbey

One last pic!

Notre Dame d’Amiens is stunning from every vantage point

Huge, bright spaces in the cathedral

Soaring windows in the cathedral

Looming above everything in Amiens is the world’s largest medieval structure, the stunning Cathedral of Notre-Dame d’Amiens. Built between 1220 and 1270 (a relatively short time span for a work of its ambition), the cathedral is an exceptionally unified version of High Gothic style. Aiming to maximize light, its builders reached far to the heavens. Its exceptional height combines with other dimensions to create a total interior volume of 260,000 cubic yards, twice that of Notre Dame in Paris.

Amiens is the historic capital of Picardy in Northern France, and sits on the lovely Somme river. Since medieval times, a huge network of canals and waterways has extended the reach of the Somme to support market gardens growing food and flowers, as well as thousands of private gardens. We thoroughly enjoyed renting bikes, riding along the river out of town, and seeing the little waterways snaking out in every direction, surrounded by lush gardens.

It is also worth noting that Amiens is the birthplace of President Emmanuel Macron, and was the home of the writer Jules Verne for the final 34 years of his life. It’s also home to 30,000 students from the University of Picardy, giving its street and squares a youthful and lively air. And it all takes place underneath the ever present towers of the cathedral.

From here we will pick up a car and head west, making a couple brief stops in Normandy. Then we’ll reach Brittany, which we will explore for 2 weeks.

We loved biking and walking the lush paths along the Somme and its canals

Dining spots along the Somme

We got our fist glimpse of the cathedral when we stepped onto the huge terrace of our otherwise very modest hotel room

The cathedral looms over the vibrant St. Leu neighborhood

Experiencing a bit of the St. Leu nightlife scene

Charming side streets in St. Leu

Out and about in St. Leu

Place Gambetta, a gathering place at the center of Amiens

Jim felt super at home in this giant pink chair on our terrace

Notre Dame sports a gleaming new central spire as it prepares to re-open in December, less than six years after its devastating fire

Ready for our first lunch in France on a perfect Paris street under perfect weather

Celebrating the imminent rebirth of Notre Dame

For our summer vacation this year, we decided we wanted to travel extensively in France. The idea was to get to the corners of the country that we’ve missed in our past travels. We’ll spend all of July and August — 9 weeks — getting to know this amazing country better than ever.

That means we’re doing a couple things differently from how we typically like to travel. To begin with, we are squeezing 25 stops into this trip, meaning an average stay in each location of just 2-1/2 nights. We usually make very few stops under three nights, preferably longer, but we’re being a bit more ambitious here so we can cover more territory. Our theory is that France has hundreds of small towns or medium-sized cities that would be perfect places to spend a couple days. We want to get to know a good sample.

We will also be traveling by car more than usual — about six of the nine weeks. The rest will be by train, which we generally prefer. But of course a car really helps us get to some of the more remote places we want to cover on this trip. Our itinerary is designed so that we rarely spend more than 2 or 3 hours in transportation from place to place.

We left steamy New York on June 30 and landed in Paris July 1 for a brief three-night stay to get started. Paris is one of only three stops on this trip that we’ve both already been to. The others are Bordeaux and Lyon, both wonderful places where stops help to break up the travel into bite size pieces.

If you are flying into Paris you can hardly not stay a little! Three nights here is of course way too little, but it’s better than nothing. We spent those three days marveling at just how beautiful this city is. The weather was glorious. It was even on the cool side for July, making for perfect walking.

As a special bonus, my dear friend of more than 40 years, Shideh, happened to be visiting here from Sweden for a short weekend visit with a couple of her cousins from Los Angeles. So the highlight of Day One was a visit to the Pompidou Center with Shideh and her cousin Faraz to see a Brancusi exhibit, followed by a cafe stop and a lovely dinner. Great way to kick off the trip.

At the Pompidou Center with Shideh

A delightful dinner

Cafe stop with Shideh

Dinner with Shideh and her cousin Faraz

I’d be remiss not to point out a couple other notable happenings in Paris at this time. First is the incredible rebirth of Notre Dame following the devastating fire of 2019. Its brand new central spire was just revealed a few months ago. The cathedral will reopen in December, an unbelievable feat in light of the amount of destruction and the challenge of putting together the plans and the thousands of workers, craftsmen, and experts need to restore it to its medieval glory. We were incredibly moved by the displays around the worksite of the restoration process and the workers making it happen.

And of course Paris is getting ready to host the 2024 summer Olympics in just a few short weeks. It was fun to see the preparations everywhere. Many of the venues are right smack in the center of the city, including the river Seine, which will host the first ever opening ceremony to take place outside of a stadium. As with the rebuilding of Notre Dame, the French can do incredibly ambitious and creative things when they want to. We’re going to be out of here before the Olympic crowds arrive, but it’ll be fun to be in France while it’s all happening.

In the art world, we enjoyed a fantastic exhibit at the Pompidou Center of the work of the Romanian Constantin Brancusi, the first truly modern sculptor. It may be our last visit to the Pompidou before it closes in 2025 for a five-year massive renovation. And Jim went to an exhibit he was crazy about at the Orsay Museum, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first large Impressionist art exhibit. It featured works from the 1874 Impressionist exhibit, a radical opposition to the official French Salon, as well as the official Salon of the same year. It was like seeing history change right before your eyes.

We are right now sitting on one of France’s incredibly fast TGV trains, flying north to Lille, right on the border with Belgium, for the next stop of this summer adventure in France.

The Hotel de Ville all dressed up for the Olympics

Massive construction of Olympic venues right in the Place de la Concore

Jim’s steak tartare at one lunch stop came with an amazing mustard selection

More Shideh at the Pompidou Center

Brancusi at the Pompidou Center

Heavenly spot at the Luxembourg Garden

Perfect Parisian streetscape

No way I’m going to pass up a picture with this cat!