We were doubting whether to sail to Fécamp or not, it was a rather short trip (~ 6 hours) but the chartered depths seemed somewhat unclear. Hint: they aren’t and all went well!
However, we are so lucky to have made the trip. The marina – though more oldschool and run down – is way calmer with the current wind and we have moored in such a way that we have sun all day in our cockpit.
The trip in itself was uneventful and again mainly involved motoring with some support of the mainsail. Or wait, could it be possible that we haven’t had any sails up? 🧐
We were passing along the impressive cliffs which are hard to capture on photo and passed a nuclear power plant. Note France still has 57 active nuclear reactors accounting for almost 25% of the EUs electricity generated 🤯
Fécamp in itself is smaller than Dieppe but located at the surrounding cliffs and hills. It has medieval history and used to have an abbey in which the famous liqueur from Normandy was invented. If you are more interested also read about the battle of Hastings 🥸 … Lisa forces me to stop here with my history lessons.
The central church is very large and shares the length of Notre Dame in Paris. However, really impressive is the tidal clock showing the tides of Fécamp and dating back to the mid 17th century.
For the true crime lovers: the churches USP is some drops of the blood of Jesus which was stolen two years back and returned to a detective in Amsterdam. Apparently because the thieves were haunted by a curse.
Today, on our second (first full day) we will hike to the hilltop castle and might check out the abbey, before leaving to Honfleur on Tuesday.
Key insight? France is just like Germany: on Sunday everything is closed, everything!
Addition #1: after a lovely day hiking to a castle and some hilltop radar installation with the mandatory German bunker ruins of the Atlantic wall, we enjoyed a terrible coffee in the sun. 😭 So we decided it’s time to make our own cappuccinos again. After that we had a lovely borrel sharing stories with our fellow boaties from Shiva (Liek and Paul). We tasted the local Appel Cidre and loved the. Sunny time together, thank you! 🥂
That said, Lisa and myself realized that we really value the Dutch gezelligheid. When we left we were even worried that we would unlearn Dutch, but especially Lisa practises it more than ever before. 🧡
