Honfleur (14 Calvados, Normandie) is a delightful small harbour town on the Normandy coast just west of the Seine river estuary and Le Havre, now reached after crossing the elegant Pont de Normandie.
12 – 13 October 2024 – Shrimp and Fishing Festival
the town celebrates the Annual Fete de la Crevette et de la Peche (shrimps and fishing) – with music, fireworks, cookery, parade, marine crafts etc. For more info see www.ot-honfleur.fr .
After the industrial and concrete-dominated arrival in Le Havre this comes as a welcome breath of fresh air and you start to feel that you are in the real France (as long as you ignore all the British yachts in the harbour – Honfleur being a favourite weekend cross-channel destination from the south coast marinas).
in May – Maritime Festival (Fete des Marins)
Blessing of the Sea on the Sunday followed by a procession through the town on the Monday.
There is plenty of scope for confusion amongst novices on the naming of these crustaceans (in English almost as much as in French) – shrimps, prawns, scampi, crayfish.. Without going into the detailed classifications and natural history we’ll try to summarise..
Crevettes grises (grey) are shrimps – the larger ones also known as Gambas, whilst Crevettes roses (pink) are prawns – tending to be a bit bigger than the shrimp.Ecrivisses are crayfish, whilst langoustines are scampi – Langoustes being larger, more like a small spiny lobster. At the top of the pile is Homard, the lobster.
There is a good B&B in Honfleur; La Cour Sainte Catherine a former convent of Augustinian sisters in the 17th Century with typical Normandy buildings clustered around a small enclosed garden – and within easy walking distance of the port.
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