11 July 2013 Le Havre

Today we arrived in Le Havre in France which is at the mouth of the River Seine.  It was founded in 1517 and now has a population of 250,000 and was badly damaged during WWII.  We had a tour booked for the afternoon so we took a walk into town in the morning.  We were able to walk into town from where we were docked, it was a reasonable size place by the population but not particularly vibrant, mind you we were there about 9.30 in the morning bit early for the French I think.  We walked thru the streets went into Our Lady’s Cathedral, a very lovely building which has suffered much since a first chapel, made of wood and dedicated to Our Lady was built in 1520, it was soon replaced by a stronger church with stone pillars. The present church was built – for the greater part between 1575 and 1610.  Devastated and ransacked during the French revolution it was restored a first time in 1830, badly damaged again during the Allied bombings of Sept 1944, which destroyed the old parts of the town, its restoration was only finished in 1974, the greater part of the furniture was destroyed by fire. A new diocese being elected in Le Havre Our Lady’s church became a Cathedral and was solemnly consecrated on December 7, 1974. 

One really only learns about any of these places by looking at their Churches and Cathedrals there is so much you can learn from just a general visit.  We continued on and went back to the ship to be in readiness for our tour to Rouen. The drive was very pretty, our guide was informative, Rouen a very pretty place indeed, I could have done some shopping there, we had afternoon tea in a pretty little café watching the world go by.  After a drive home we arrived back to the ship to catch up with our friends who were disembarking in Dover the next day. 

I know I add lots of info in these but this is what makes the journey.  Lots of love Sabine and Sam  XXX