Our Trip to Europe

Day 4 – Le Havre, France

Today we didn’t have an excursion until 2pm so we were able to sleep in. Had breakfast and headed for the gym to work out. At about 2pm we went on shore & joined our tour to Etratat & Lecamp. Our first stop was at the Benedictine brewery where they make liquor. It was in a beautiful building with a lot of religious artifacts and stained glass in it. I took a lot of pictures. We were told that even though the liquor is named after the Benedictine Monks who were located in the same town, it was never actually made by the Monks. A Monk created the recipe for the liquor and then a Merchant started the distillery. He, however, used the Benedictine name and incorporated many religious items into the building of the distillery and attached museum that would lead people to believe that the Monks made the liquor. At the end of the tour, we were able to have a sample of the liquor which has an extremely alcohol content but was pretty tasty – definitely cleared the sinuses!!

Unfortunately, our bus had punched a hole in the transmission and was out of commission, so they had to get us a new bus in order for us to continue the tour. They were very efficient and had it waiting for us when we finished our tour. This one did not have air conditioning and it was fairly warm that day so we were pretty uncomfortable.

We headed off through the countryside to Etratat. It was a beautiful ride and we passed a lot of fields of flax and sugar beets and saw a lot of “French cows” Our guide explained to us how farmers would build their homes within a square stand of trees for protection and we saw several examples of this. Again, I think due to good old Forshee luck, our second bus broke down in the middle of a small town. We blocked traffic for about 20 minutes while our bus driver worked on the bus trying to get it started again. Of course, by this time it was pouring rain, lightning and thundering. We stayed on the HOT but while they were calling for another replacement. The bus driver was able to get it started again and we continued our trip to Etratat. We finally made it and were told that our third bus would be taking us back to the ship after our time in Etratat.


Turned in at about 10pm as we will be in Cornwall tomorrow and have scheduled a coastal hike and pub lunch. We will be hiking a minimum of 3 miles and of course, they are predicting showers. Hopefully they will be light to non-existent!!

We are having a great time and look forward to each new port of call!

Our guide took us to the seaside where we could see the chalk cliffs and we were given an hour to climb them and tour the town. Paul and I headed off on the trek up the cliffs trying to get a picture of the famous “Eye and Needle”. The path was steep and slippery. We got to the top and unfortunately saw that we would need to go over to the next cliff in order to get the classic picture but would then not have enough time to see the town. We decided to be content with the pictures we had and headed back down to town. Again, by this time, it had started to rain again. Paul took a tumble on the path down but didn’t hurt himself, thank goodness. We walked through the main part of town taking pictures. It was a beautiful town with a lot of typical European architecture. We really wished we had had more time there to wander around, maybe stop in and have a crepe or some gelato, but we had to be back at the bus on time or risk getting left. Boarded our third bus of the day and headed back to the ship. We were unable to make our dinner seating tonight so had made reservations to have our dinner in the Portofino restaurant onboard the ship. I have eaten there a couple of times and it is always a very enjoyable experience.