January saw my first trip of the year, and the first trip of three work visits I’d need to make to Normandy. Although business often takes place in a windowless bunker somewhere deep on a chemical plant or oil refinery, at least with these French trips I get to stay in Honfleur.
I’ve been lucky enough to have stayed in Honfleur on several trips, having learned the lesson early on of not staying in Le Harve. Its a picture postcard little town on the banks of the Seine. With a pretty little harbour surrounded by 18th century town houses. It always looks lovely.
January brings a few challenges when staying here, although finding a hotel room isn’t one of them. Its Northern Europe, so its dark and cold. With the early starts for work and no windows on site it meant I hardly saw daylight for the whole trip. Also, Honfleur is largely geared around the tourism trade so many of the restaurants are closed or only open a few days of the week.
Still my “usual”, the Albatros was open as always so I was able to pop-up for a pint of Leffe and some downtime after each day.
Getting there.. This is probably worth a mention because over the years I’ve experimented with several options on how to get to Honfleur.
Initially I used to drive down to Folkestone on Sunday evening and stay in the Premier Inn, before leaving on the first Eurotunnel departure of Monday morning. This would mean arriving on site (not quite Honfleur) around lunchtime. This wasted half a day’s work, involved an early start and long day on Monday and the Premier Inn is at best “functional”.
One time we tried flying from Luton on Sunday (about 30 minutes from the office) to CDG. Then picking up a hire car and driving down to Honfleur. Personally I’m not a fan. The short haul flight aspect with Easyjet takes a lot of time given you’re in the air less than an hour, plus the return drive means circumnavigating Paris on a Friday afternoon.
Flexiplus tickets make this drive so much easier. You’re usually straight on the next shuttle even if there have been delays, and you can make a pit stop, pick up snacks and a coffee in the lounge.
The typical plan is these days is to give up a Sunday afternoon and drive down to Honfleur in one go in a UK hire car. The traffic on Sunday’s is fairly light, and with a Flexiplus ticket there’s no waiting. On Friday there’s no point leaving site too early as you’ll just get snagged up around Dartford anywhere. So I usually get home about 9pm. This has proven to be the least stressful, most dependable way of getting there.
(I have considered the ferry, but the timings don’t particularly pan out well for a Monday-to-Friday visit)
