The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Take a trip to neighbors of Normandy, see region
Although just a few miles apart, Honfleur and LeHavre show different faces of northern region
Although just a few miles apart, Honfleur and LeHavre show different faces of northern region.
Honfleur, tucked away along an estuary on the south bank of the Seine River in Normandy, was a strategic site during the Hundred Years’ War and occupied by the British for 30 years, ending in 1450. But the river silted up and by World War II was no longer strategically important, ceding its maritime significance to LeHavre, across the river.
Its distinction for artists, begun with painter Eugène Boudin in the mid 19th century, continues to this day. It was Boudin who persuaded the young Claude Monet to take up the style of landscape painting that would later be known as Impressionism.
Honfleur’s site in what became the east of France was first occupied by the Vikings, when they invaded the north of Gaul in the ninth century. They established a colony that became known as the Land of the Northmen, or Normandy.
Honfleur still is very much a viable fishing port with a thriving community of fishermen. They mend their nets along the harbor as visitors stroll its cobbled streets and artists set up easels to capture its picturesque half-timbered and slate-front houses.
Artists, long drawn here for the quality of its light, still come to paint in this unspoiled medieval town. Samuel Champlain set out from Honfleur to found Quebec in the early 1600s, and its harbor continues to brim with colorful sailboats and interesting shops.
Painters and those who come to photograph the port and capture its reflections say the light is best just after dawn.
Honfleur has remained a small town, with a population just over 8,000, with a fine Boudin museum and maritime museum not far from its historic harbor.
The town has a number of old churches worth visiting, including the doubleroofed wooden Church of St. Catherine, which dates to the 15th century. Built by ship-builders after the Hundred Years’ War, its twin naves upheld by oak columns are reminiscent of an upside-down ship’s hull.
Cross the Seine on the impressive, 7,000-foot-long Pont de Normandie bridge, which opened in 1995 to connect Honfleur with Le Havre — now the secondlargest port in France.
Le Havre was founded in 1517 to replace the silted-up port of Honfleur, then 14 miles away by land.
Occupied by the Nazis in 1940, Le Havre was declared a fortress by the Germans, who swore it would never be taken. Four years later, it was leveled by bombs dropped by the British Air Force in what the Brits called a “storm of fire and iron.” Firebombs destroyed 80 percent of the city, eradicating more than 12,500 buildings, killing 5,000 people and making homeless another 80,000, most of them civilians.
The destroyed city center was rebuilt between 1946 and 1964 by a team headed by Auguste Perret, who used reinforced concrete to provide quick, affordable and sturdy housing in islands of buildings. Original street patterns of the city were retained with new ideas of town planning in an urban environment. The first residents moved into the community of 10,000 apartments, each built to house four or five people, in 1951. Until then, they’d lived in wooden barracks, hastily constructed after the war ended. Le Havre finally was freed in September 1944, making it one of the last cities to be liberated.
A model apartment, constructed and furnished on the first floor of one group of buildings, lets today’s visitor see the then-modern facilities built to rehouse the population. The kitchen, with its built-in appliances, was near the entrance, and sliding doors allowed reconfiguring of the spaces for guests.
Spend some time to examine the details and see toys of the early ‘50s in the children’s bedroom, functional ceramic kitchenware, an original typewriter and then-modern conveniences such as a pressure cooker, washing machine and floor polisher.
The 1,000-square-foot apartment has three bedrooms, living room, library/ den, bathroom and kitchen and looks like a set from a 1950s sitcom. You almost expect Donna Reed to come swooping in.
Nor far away is St. Joseph Church, the figurehead of Perret’s reconstruction of the city center and now a landmark by land or sea. On Sept. 15, 1945, a Mass took place on the rubble of the church to commemorate the first anniversary of its destruction.
Perret collaborated with stained-glass artist Marguerite Hurt, who played with the positions of the sun to embed seven colors of glass into the reinforced concrete, using darker colors near the base and lighter ones as the tower ascends to its full 350 feet. The sun’s reflections on more than 12,700 pieces of colorful stained glass create a kaleidoscope on the floors and pillars. The colors change depending on the position of the sun, resulting in more than fifty shades. The effect is spectacular.
A symbol of the renaissance of Le Havre, St. Joseph Church was dedicated to the memory of the victims of the city’s devastation.
The church was constructed between 1951 and 1958, Perret using 700 tons of steel and 50,000 tons of concrete to build it.
The Roman Catholic St. Joseph Church remains an esteemed place of worship and was honored by the United Nations as an historical monument just a year after it was built.