Honfleur is a town on the west coast of France, near the site of the WWII invasion on D-Day. It is a very old city with written references extending back over a thousand years. The name is derived from a Viking family name, Honfleu.
That isn’t why we decided to go there. We just wanted to go to Normandy and see a beautiful village that was primarily a vacation spot for the French. It is old even by French village standards. We visited Riquewihr in the east of France earlier. It was an old German-influenced village in the Alscace Lorraine Region, bordering Germany, and its oldest buildings were built in the 1600’s. That was old, but Honfleur was at least 500 years older.
So we left 21 Rue Jouffroy d’Abbans at 8:00 AM, spirits up, feeling confident that we could make the 10:20 train to Caen. We had to walk the first half mile to the metro station at Villiers. Along the way a wheel broke on our large suitcase. No problem, just a wheel. We could drag and carry it.
We got to the station and carried it down. We tried to go through the turnstiles with our baggage, and unfortunately the arm on the turnstile caught the strap on our bag. In the ensuing excitement, Nancy’s metro ticket was lost. No problem, we didn’t need it anymore since we were leaving Paris. We jumped on the Metro and went from Villiers to the St. Lazare Station.
The St. Lazare Station at nine in the morning was really busy. It was at least five stories high with trains on every story, but, fortunately, we got there with time to spare! Broken wheel, lost ticket . . nothing could stop us now!
Unfortunately, the train was 40 minutes late. Then, we missed our connecting train.
We got to our apartment in Honfleur at 7:30 PM but couldn’t get in . . no key and no owner. No problem, except that Nancy was preparing to kill me.
My life was eventually salvaged because the owner called us back and gave us the code for the lock box, which eventually allowed me to live . . a few days longer at least.
I did learn one thing. I can’t speak French when I am tired and fearing for my life.