07 Friday Aug 2015
Posted in France, Normandy, Things to do
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All over France there are green routes or voies vertes that let you explore the country on two wheels – without contending with traffic. The cycle roads are well signposted and often built over old rail routes. These pictures were taken along the route between Evreux and the abbey at Le Bec Hellouin, in Normandy.
Haystacks and windmills
Fields of wheat, corn, lettuce
Fresh eggs, perhaps
Wildflowers
04 Monday May 2015
Posted in Normandy, Things to do, Travel
Another visit to the wonderful zoological park at Clères, which we have visited before. The collection was established as a private zoo by ornithologist Jean Delacour at his chateau north of Rouen. Later donated to the state, the collection of animals reflects his travels in Vietnam, Madagascar, and Central America. On this visit the gardens were a mass of spring flowers and blossoms, and the animals and birds, who live in semi-freedom, were active and full of song.
06 Saturday Sep 2014
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Books, film, Flaubert, Gemma Bovery, Madame Bovary, Normandy
We’re getting excited about the forthcoming French film of Posy Simmonds’ comic novel, Gemma Bovery. Set in Normandy, it’s a modern retelling of the classic French novel Madame Bovary – with a heavy dose of English irony thrown in. The book is great on the English and the English in Normandy, on our relationship with the food, the countryside and the French. The film is released on September 10th in France, and stars Gemma Aterton. Here’s the trailer.
30 Wednesday Jul 2014
Posted in Les Iris
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We love it when guests share pictures of their time in Normandy with us. These were taken by a family from Florida who visited in June. They told us they were surprised and enchanted by the location, and felt we should show it better on our website. Here are their pictures – aren’t they wonderful!
25 Friday Jul 2014
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What’s better than an attic full of the things someone once treasured, then grew up or turned in another direction, and now here’s the thing, dusty and worn yet special in some way just waiting to be discovered. Ebay thrives on this market of lost things but it isn’t the same, is it. There isn’t that physical thrill you get when you’ve sorted through the junk to find the very thing, shined it up with the palm of your hand, and imagined it into your life.
Maybe that’s why the brocante still thrives in France, this most sensory of cultures being reluctant to part with the thrill that comes with the hunt. Here are our latest finds, from consignment brocante type shop La Grange de Janna, just relocated from Honfleur to Pont-Audemer and helpfully open every day. Furniture, books, electronics, audio, vintage and modern – it’s all here in a cavernous warehouse.
At Les Iris the walls are fairly bare and we’re always looking for pictures that connect to our lives here in Normandy, while small enough to suit the cottage’s dimensions. The miniature oil of a vase of flowers will be perfect. The fashion plate will remind our daughters not to complain about the clothes they have to wear.
And the mandolin – an impulse purchase, redolent of Picasso, southern summers, Shakespearean serenades. It needs re-stringing and a polish, but is in good shape, and made by Masspacher in Paris. A fine old thing will get new life.
05 Monday May 2014
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Last month in Amsterdam we admired Van Gogh’s irises.
This month, it’s the real thing. Irises at every turn. Yellow by the side of the road, indigo along the drive and deep purple and bee-attracting at the end of the garden. The photos don’t quite do them justice.
28 Monday Oct 2013
31 Saturday Aug 2013
It’s a truism to state that there’s little glamour in flying. All those transatlantic flights, lodged in the back of the plane with a screaming toddler and a broken TV screen. Or the low-cost landlocked journeys east, as far as you can go and still be in Europe, knees in your face, costs a fortune for a coffee. So what a joy to start a flight from Deauville Airport!
It’s a two-gate terminal with a couple of weekly flights to City Airport, London, and charter flights during holiday seasons. There’s a flying school, and many private planes coming in and out. In the parking lot (a mere few metres from the airport terminal) a child of around 7 announces “My Dad has his own private plane.” Most people here do, I think. There’s a smart bar upstairs, and a restaurant with crisp white tablecloths and 3-course meals. No rushing for ferries and trains, or driving hours south from the ports. What better way to pop into your holiday home in Deauville or Honfleur?
The CityJet plane is luxurious: leather seats and good leg room. Drinks are free, staff are courteous. There is fresh coffee and a Leonidas chocolate before landing. The plane stays low on a cloudless day and offers excellent views of Deauville with its sandy beach, marina, casino and racecourse. Later, there’s a birds eye view of London from Battersea Power Station over Parliament and along to the Olympic Park with its gleaming arenas. “A Peter Pan view” comments the briefcase-wielding gentleman in front of me who the staff know by name, perhaps he has something to do with the races or the film festival. Anyway, he’s right: if this were a Disney ride, you’d get back in the queue for another go. How’s that for a great flight.
16 Sunday Jun 2013
13 Saturday Apr 2013
On Easter Monday we visited one of my favourite close-by places, an undiscovered gem of a museum: the bread oven, a cottage in La-Haye-de-Routot in the middle of the Forêt de Brotonne that maintains a traditional bread oven. Most weekends they bake and sell hundreds of their sweet-smelling loaves all afternoon. On this day, as well as the loaves, there was chocolate-filled brioche, an Easter treat.
“What’s this?” cried the French children, seemingly disgusted. But the basket was nearly emptied, and it was the American candy, not the beautiful French candy, that went first as the children gorged themselves.
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