A sailors life for me - Honfleur

La première étape de notre voyage - c'est tout! (Stage one of our trip - done!)

Foodie moment

Huitres (Oysters) are a favourite of mine (Mark hates them), so i was desperate to have some whilst on the coast of France. The cheapest way to get them was from a waterside vendor, but as i was met with a snort when i asked if the fisherman spoke English, it was a bit more challenging! Needless to say, I managed to order 6 fresh oysters and convince the man to shuck them for me, provide a container and one of the lemons he used in his display all for 6 Euro! Not sure how happy he was, but I was very pleased with myself!

Last night in France we splashed out on a 3 course set menu. We started with a smoked salmon roulard, then Mark had confit Canard (duck) with potatoes and I had Bouillabaisse Normandie (Fish tagine). Desert was chocolate mousse and cheese. Amazing food, and Mark is sold on duck forever!!!

Cultural moment

Something we have found throughout our travels is how good the French (particularly those who work in tourist areas) speak English. This is particularly true the further north west (closer to the UK) you travel. Although sometimes they are not forthright in letting you know how well they speak, once they start, their language skills are not simple essentials, they can talk at a reasonably complex level. I'm not sure if this is because they have contact with so many English speakers, or due to tv and movies, or the quality of French schools but it certainly puts our language skills in Australia to shame!!

Wow moment

What a cute little fishing village Honfleur is! I imagine how nice it would be in the sunshine, with the boats, parks, beach and waterside cafes. Its was still nice even in the rain with the cobbled streets, colourful bunting strung across the streets and great food!

What we learnt today

Time moves differently in Europe - particularly in the north. The sun comes up at 6am and will not go down until well after 9.30pm. This leads to very long days! This is great when you sit down at 5 in the evening and know you can enjoy sitting in the sun for another 4 hours, but not so great when its cold and wet and the day seems to go forever, so you have an early night but its still light outside!! Mark said he felt like a kid who was sent to bed early and could still hear the children playing outside, like he's missing out on something!!