LeHavre, Gurnsey, and Cobh

LeHavre is about 4 hours and 4 million miles from Paris.  Other than everything being French, you would never even know that you were that close to Le Tour Eiffel...  We docked in LeHavre and took a tax-ee to the downtown area, which was mainly closed.   

It was actually quite nice, and quiet, I guess because world cup soccer was on.  

There was this group of musicians playing and dancing, and they were good, even without a big crowd to watch them. 

Some kind of mascot thing.  Funny enough, when we are in Korea and we don't understand what is being said, people naturally assume that we aren't from around there and that we don't speak Korean.  Here, when the kids didn't understand what was being said, people assumed that they had to speak French LOUDER!  If you have ever had that happen, you know that it really doesn't help.    And if you are trying to speak to someone that doesn't speak English,
DON'T.   TALK.   LOUDER.   AND.   SLOWER.....      THEY.   DON'T.    UNDERSTAND!

This is the Eglise St Joseph, a church in the town.  While we very rarely go to church in Korea, when we are on vacation, we go almost every day!  

This is the view up the spire.  

Walking around the deserted and closed shops.  

Back on the boat, and leaving France.  

This is the next day.  We are going to Guernsey, in the Channel Islands.

We didn't know where it was before, either, so don't feel bad.



Um... if this still doesn't help, that big lump above the circle is Great Britain and Wales, the bumpy lump on the left is Ireland, and the wiggly place on the bottom that kind of looks like Abraham Lincoln's profile  is France.

Guernsey is, I guess, a British territory, but also it's own country.  When you are in the shops, they will take Pounds, but give you change in Guernsey dollars, which you can only spend in Guernsey, or take home as a souvenir.  This is a castle that guards the harbor.   

So cute... but I don't know that I would necessarily make a sign with only 3 places of interest... they could have just handed out postcards...   

The waterfront street. 

We decided to walk out to the lighthouse along the castle walls. 

Another thing about Guernsey is that although the people speak English, we still couldn't understand about 3/4 of what they were saying.  Gary has the hardest time with this.  People just want to talk to him, and he just nods and smiles.  Who knows what he has agreed to!

Next set of cool phone booths.

The Wallgate was a new thing for us!  You put your hands in and soap squirts out from the silver knobby thing in the top.  Then about 10 seconds later, water... so you can lather and rinse.  But wait... the Wallgate experience isn't over yet... lastly blow-drying happens... all right in that one unit!  As we were walking out of the bathroom marveling at the experience, this Guernsey gent says... "It wuhrks greet when it wuhrks!"  We all laughed, except Gary, who smiled and nodded and asked us--- what did he say?

This is the Hauteville House, where Victor Hugo spent some time writing.  Of course, it was closed when we got there, but if you want to see inside, which I did, you can look here:

http://www.visitguernsey.com/victor-hugos-guernsey

The view from the top.  

You can see the roofs of the houses, and all of the little chimneys.

Love these secret little passageways. 

This was the bank, and another little side street.  Guernsey was actually a nice place to visit, and I think it is selling itself short by claiming it has only three points of interest.  This little side street reminded me of a back way in Portsmouth.. just cute little shops, nicely priced, and despite it being Sunday, many were open. 

And since we had Guernsey money we had to spend... well, why not!

Wouldn't you love to wake up one day and see this?!?  This is our next stop, Cork, Ireland.

Cork was a major transatlantic port and the departure place for about one third of Irish immigrants.  It was also the last port that the Titanic stopped before sinking.  So, despite the huge immigrant business, it is the Titanic that Cork uses to make it's mark.

There is a Titanic Museum, several Titanic shops, and a Titanic Memorial and Gardens.

Not great if you are getting off a cruise.

Ah, no thanks, I don't want to see photos of the Titanic victims eating dinner...  

Instead we went to this park, with an extraordinary number of benches.  There were A LOT!

Walking uphill to go to ... yup...  a church!

This is St. Coleman Cathedral.  

And this is the view from their parking lot.  Each of those houses is connected to its neighbor.  Actually it is one long apartment building, but each one is painted separately.  

The view inside.  

After that we decided to take a walk to the Titanic Memorial Gardens. This was a rest along the way. 

And some nice scenery. 

That brick wall to the left is the wall of the gardens.  It wasn't really much of a garden, mainly just four or five stones with Titanic passengers names engraved.    Not even one mention of the 2.5 million success stories, though...

So we just decided to play on the shore instead.  By this point we are kind of Titanic-ed out, so we started having some fun.  This rock?  It was a paperweight on the Titanic!  That rusted out piece of scrap metal?  Yup!  A pipe, from the Titanic.  I actually brought two pieces of the Titanic home with me, but, shhhhhhh... they'll probably want it back for the museum.

Leaving Cobh.

And the last farmhouse that passengers on the Titanic ever saw...