Normandy: Étretat and Honfleur

Mother's Day is later in the month of May compared to the United States. Since my husband had school stuff going on during United States Mother's Day weekend and since we currently live in France, we decided to wait and celebrate Fetes des Meres during the weekend of the 29th.

Check out that fog! 

Our original plan was to drive 5 hours to Île de Ré and spend a long weekend on the beach there, but due to strikes and gasoline shortages, we decided to change our plans a bit and headed north to Normandy, a quick 2 hour drive from Paris.

We spent one day in Étretat and one day in Honfleur. We booked at what we thought was a great Bed and Breakfast (it said right on their site that children of all ages were welcome), only to have them cancel on us as we were driving to Normandy on Saturday due to us having young children and them not wanting us to bother the other guests. Thanks a lot, Apihome.

Luckily, Hotel Des Falaises in Étretat still had openings and was very welcoming to our small family. It was a great little hotel right in the center of the village and walking distance to the beach, cliffs, shops, and restaurants.

We ended up having a great weekend and I had a wonderful Mother's Day.

Pebble hunting

Étretat
Étretat is a small village in northern Normandy that is best known for it's breathtaking cliffs. Claude Monet actually painted several beautiful paintings here.

We spent our day mostly walking along the beach. Our girls loved playing with the pebbles and seeing what interesting looking rocks they could find. It was awesome seeing the ocean again and we were all pretty happy.

I love this picture of the three of them. 

What a view!

Our day started off foggy, but cleared up in the late afternoon. There were several great little playgrounds sprinkled throughout the town that the girls enjoyed playing on. A little bit later, we walked up the cliff that has a church on top (we took our stroller up the main road but there are also stairs one can climb as well) and then after dinner, we headed over to the other cliff (this time without the stroller which ended up being a good call) and hiked that one as well.

The views were spectacular and well worth carrying two small children most of the way. Both our little ones loved picking flowers along the way and pointing out all the seagulls.

Honfleur

Honfleur is south of Etretat and is known for it's historic port. It's another place where Monet would paint along with other artists as well. It also has France's largest church built out of wood.

This port was so picturesque! I loved all the buildings!

After a nice breakfast at our hotel, we checked out and then drove less than an hour to Honfleur. We started our day off by going straight to the beautiful carousel. The girls enjoyed riding it and we made plans to come back again before leaving.

Best dad ever.

We got lunch in the port and it was so good! There were many places to choose from, but we ended up getting seafood (shrimp, mussels with fries, and a cheese plate for Aaron and oysters, salmon with rice, and strawberries with whipped cream for me). London of course ate a little of everything and loved it and Adeline ate mostly bread and a banana (and rice and strawberries too!). 

It was a great Mother's Day lunch and not at all expensive. We ate outside where there was room for our stroller and the waiters were all very nice and attentive.

After lunch, we checked out St. Catherine's Church. Honfleur was a community of sailors and while the people knew how to build boats, they were unsure how to build a church. So they fashioned the church after a boat and ended up with a uniquely beautiful chapel.

The inside of the church.

We explored the town a bit next, but there wasn't too much more to see. Once we went past the port, it was more residential. We did find a nice a chocolate shop though and the girls got me a few chocolates for Mother's Day.

We ended our day with another ride on the carousel and then hopped in the car and headed home.

Etretat and Honfleur were a great quick weekend getaway for us. We loved that it wasn't too long of a drive either way and that there were fun things for the girls in both towns. It was a wonderful way to spend Mother's Day and I'm so happy to be a mother to these two little girls.