We had the pleasure of staying in Sylvie's very sympathetically decorated and exceptionally comfortable appartment which is situated less than two minutes' walk from Place Sainte-Catherine in the centre of Honfleur. She has made really good use of the space and the appartment is cosy without feeling at all cramped. There is convenient parking less than 50 metres from the flat and she kindly provided us with a voucher for the duration of our stay. Without this, parking would have been very costly, not to mention elusive!
When we arrived, we were warmly greeted by Sylvie's friends, Jerome and Fany who made sure that we knew where everything was and how everything worked in the flat.
After that, we just enjoyed three days of mooching around Honfleur and the surrounding area. It's a place that lends itself very well to quietly exploring all the cobbled streets with their beautifully preserved houses, museums, the eclectic art and antique shops, endless restaurants and the ubiquitous local produce shops selling Calvados, cider, apple juice - basically anything apple related plus all those very healthy salt butter caramels!
For me, the Honfleur highlights if you're just visiting are:
The Satie Museum,
Sainte-Catherine's Church plus the varied Normandy architecture in all the narrow streets that lead away from it,
The view overlooking Honfleur at Équemauville just in front of La Chapelle Notre Dame de Grace.
The circular 3 valley walk starting at Saint Pierre du Val (about 15km east of Honfleur
Low points? Well there weren't many, except for the choking weekend bottlenecks of traffic and one restaurant where the manager behaved with unattractive and dismissive arrogance when we pointed out that he had overcharged us by some margin.
Anyway, it's important not to dwell on those things because everything else was exactly as it should be for a long weekend and if you're fortunate enough to end up staying at Valentin, well that really is a sweet cherry on top of a very good cake!
