We spent a week in northern France.
Before the trip, our image of northern France came partly from movies: white cliffs, the sea, and small seaside towns with restaurants and hotels.
Our first hotel was in Le Havre, near Étretat. On the way there, we talked a lot about a story we both knew from school, My Uncle Jules by Guy de Maupassant. I had always thought of Le Havre as the place in the story, or the place where the ship left from.
We didn’t really plan the whole trip before we left. We booked each hotel only one day before, for the next day. So the whole trip was quite spontaneous.
One of our first stops was Étretat.
When the white cliffs were right in front of us, they were quite impressive. The scene looked almost exactly like what we had seen in movies: people playing on the beach, restaurants by the sea, and seagulls everywhere.
It was also the first time we tried raw oysters.
I was a little surprised because there was almost no fishy taste at all. I liked them enough that when we went to Mont Saint-Michel, we decided to make a special stop in Cancale, which is known for its oysters.
The oyster market in Cancale was quite small. There were only six stalls.
Everyone was calling out to customers and seemed very friendly. Their French sounded very clear, almost like a teacher speaking in a classroom.
They opened the oysters very quickly and skillfully. They also told us that we could just throw the empty shells on the beach after eating them.
On our way back, we also stopped at the Normandy beaches.
The beach was huge, much bigger than many other beaches we had seen. Standing there, it was easier to imagine how difficult the retreat must have been during World War II.