Honfleur - A magically alluring Atlantic port in France.

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Driving throughout north-west France was a most enthralling experience after which we turned south to the Dordogne region.

In my series of special locations that I have visited, which I started with Vernazza on the Italian Riviera, this little town kept fighting in my subconscious to be the next in line.

And a most well deserved place to be high up on my list - Honfleur! What a magically alluring medieval location on the Atlantic coast of France. Walking past the quaint shops after parking the car, we entered a narrow street and soon emerged into the harbour area. The row of ancient buildings, wedged up against each other like a stack of well read books, beckoned in their appeal. Below them, butted up to water's edge, inviting outdoor restaurants inescapably pulled at my gastronomic urges. Seated in one outdoor red-roofed area at water's edge I enjoyed what I consider to have been the most outstanding seafood platter ever.

Traditional fishing boats of varying descriptions bobbed gently in the shadows of a few sleek modern yachts, moored in the narrow inlet. The atmosphere was one that instantly cast my mind back to the early seventeenth century. Then, immigrants would board vessels and head west into the unknown for an uncertain life in the New World and what would later be called Canada. There were no tourist restaurants or fancy yachts then, only those desperately desiring a better life outside what that had only known. Today many a Quebec resident would surely have ancestors that left for Canada from that port.

Sadly, I lost all my photographs due to my computer hard drive having crashed.

As a consequence I regrettably have to curtail this potentially exciting series.

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