Honfleur - a stunning medieval port in Normandy on the North coast of France

We visited Honfleur in France a few years back while on a lovely holiday travelling across the north coast from Cherbourg to Calais.

Its quite a beautiful town, with fantastic buildings stacked up around a really stunning port.

It has become quite a tourist attraction because it is so quaint. While we were there it was really busy, with many tourists making their way around the town shops, stalls, bars and restaurants.

The town centre is full of these really stunning old buildings. The town itself is around 1000 years old, and has this lovely ye-olde feel about it !

I lovely the view above, looking across the harbour. Look at all of those lovely tall and thin buildings - they bring such character to the town, and I guess thats why it draws in all of the tourists.

The building above is the beautiful Eglise Sainte Catherine (St Catherine Church). It is France's largest wooden church, and dates from the 15th century. It really felt old, like not much had changed in hundreds of years - it was completely stunning and so full of character. It reminded me more of a guildhall in construction, than a church, which was a large part of the character to me.

Thats another view of the church from the back far corner, and you can see what I mean about the guildhall appearance. If you could not see the spire, you would not automatically assume it was a church !

And above is the bell tower of the church of Saint Catherine, which is actually not connected to the main church. Again you can see just how quaint it is, and I love the extra struts that are in place to support the main tower - really quite something !!!

The port occupies quite a large area. What you see above is the inner harbour, and there are more harbour areas further out. It really must have been a very important port for the north coast, and I guess thats why the town grew up and boomed the way it did.

Above is another beautiful church in the town - this time the Eglise Catholique Saint-Leonard. This was built around the 17th/18th centuries and has the most amazing stone work - the carvings are quite incredible !

The pic above was taken back in the main port area showing the lovely tudor style buildings. I just love all the colours and the higlty-piglty nature of it all - its quite fantastic, and not really something that you can build on purpose these days. I guess the wooden structures have all aged and contracted/expanded over hundreds of years to get the result we now see - quite awesome !

And they even had this lovely ferris wheel setup the day we were there. We didnt go on it, but I guess it would have provided lovely views over the town and port.

I have to say its a place that has really stuck in my memories. This was actually my second visit, having been there about 20 years earlier. Its a place I'd happily visit again - it feels historic and just oozes character !