Normandie!!!

We decided to sneak out of the city and head 2 hours north to the country....to Normandie we go!

We started off with a little town called Etretat (Et-twa-da), a small port town on the northern coast of France.  

The town was quaint with cobblestone roads and narrow streets.  I had the most wonderful crepe ever for lunch.  It was filled with andouille sausage, potatoes, onions, cheese and cream...YUM

After walking through the town, we went on a hike past the beach...

...and up the side of this cliff to the overlook.

We're hiking up that???

Almost there!

Made it to the top!!!

Next up, Honfleur! The buildings had exposed brown beams surrounded by white limestone or stucco, I'm not sure what.  Everything was very old and very sturdy.  The ceilings of the rooftops were made of straw and grass and it looked like I had stepped right into Robin Hood's village.

Panorama of the hotel's grounds

These hydrangeas must have been over 50 years old...

 Dinner ended up being a 4 hour affair.  And, yes, I do mean an affair.  It was 7 courses of OMG... over and over again.

Obviously, we started with champagne, then the amuse bouche was a small plate of sushi, breadsticks with cream and some nut filled puff pastry (argh, forgot to take photos, sorry).  The second course was a cool asparagus soup, followed by my main course of fish, which was delicious....I think I had cod.  Then they came out with the cheese board.  I sampled 7 different cheeses and was in absolute and then they came out with dessert, which I did remember to photograph.  It was a chocolate mousse cake with raspberry sorbet served in several different ways...

My date got an apple tart with vanilla ice cream and some VERY potent liquor delivered as a do-it-yourself syringe.

There was another course of small dessert petit fours as well.