'A Good Drink' and the Norman Hole

Have you ever heard of the Norman Hole? It has to do with the cherished apple digestif Calvados, which has been made in towns here in Normandy for centuries. Our guide Jean-Paul Herbert educated us about this tradition while we ate fish at a beachside restaurant in Le Havre this afternoon. The Norman Hole is what you have between meals, a shot of the fiery apple brandy in between courses to cleanse your palette. He said that some women now prefer to have a little bowl of Calvados sorbet, or even a few drops on a sugar cube. But the burly fishermen and farmers swear by the shot. Tonight we sipped our Calvados after the meal, not in between.

Herbert also talked of having 'a good drink.' We paused at that, and he explained that he meant a drink with friends, a collegial sort of belt, a social time. That's a good drink. We walked for what felt like miles across the shore and docklands of this bustling port city, and watched two oil tankers and then two container ships make their way to the huge cranes of the port. While Marseille claims the title of shipping the most freight, Le Havre has big plans to expand, adding ten cranes and dredging their port to accommodate the biggest container ships, which dwarf today's models. The city also has plans to build a tram, like they have in Caen, to wean people off of having to bring cars into the city. We saw a model of this big plan when we went to the Hotel de Ville (city hall) to view the city from the 17th floor.

Le Havre's harbor area was nearly completely flattened by allied bombers, and the rebuilding was led the great architect Auguste Perret. His work was so lauded by people around the world that the redevelopment area has been proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage site, rare for an urban area, but a designation that made everyone here very proud.

Up on Top of the Cliffs at Etretat, Thinking of Jumpers

Up and down the coast of Normandy there are high chalk cliffs that sometimes go as high at 200 meters. We got a chance to see these impressive natural barriers up close today as we had lunch in front of the large-pebbled beach at Fecamps.

This town of about 10,000 was once the capital of Normandy (well, in the 10th and 11th century anyway) and today it's a tourist mecca where people come to sit by the sea and munch on big bowls of mussels. The Norman preparation of these delicate little sea creatures is in a broth of cream and cider. The mussels were much smaller and more tender than the ones we have in the US. To the right and to the left as we sat at the seaside Le Reidroc restaurant, the cliffs loomed, and out at sea we watched local schoolchildren learn to sail boats in a stiff wind.

Later we drove up the coast on a lovely winding road that took us by farms and houses with million-dollar views of the sea. We stopped at the village of Yport where we saw another dramatic cliff formation but found just down the road at Etretat an even more spectacular formation. Jean the local tourism board rep told me that every year about 10 or 12 people plunge to their deaths in suicides off of these high cliffs. The shape of the cliff looks like an elephant's trunk, and behind the elephant is a tall high formation they call the needle.

It's natural drama, and everywhere we looked there was more of it. This part of the world is certainly blessed with beauty. We spent the night in Le Havre, where across the street from our hotel is a manmade jaw-dropper. It's an arts center and cinema that looks like a massive yogurt container with its top off. Kids were running up the steep sides seeing who could go up the farthest.