Our
time in Dieppe was really enjoyable. We tied up at the marina on Friday at
about 3.00 pm and by the time we showered and cleaned up the boat and checked
in at the marina office we did not have much time for looking around. Peter and
Elizabeth, our new Swedish friends, invited us on to their boat for drinks and
as we didn't leave them until about 8.00 pm we decided to make souvlaki for
dinner on board and have a reasonably early night. Because it is not dark now
until about 10.30 pm it is difficult to have an early night, but I think we
need one to cope with the early mornings and the push to keep moving on as much
as we can.
Yesterday
was a great day as it was market day and Dieppe supposedly has the best market
in Normandy. We did buy excellent fruit and vegetables of all kinds, cheese,
baguettes, rotisserie pork and chicken, a range of charcuterie, some duck
breasts to cook, patisserie, etc and we loved the whole experience. Dieppe is a
beautiful town because it was rebuilt during the 1800s in the traditional
French architectural style of that time and the buildings were not destroyed
during World War 2 because it was occupied by the Germans. The harbour is in
the centre of town so it is a great place to be on a boat. We had a feast on
board for lunch, with the sun shining at last, and then wandered around the
town again in the afternoon with most of the market stalls cleared away. Peter and Elizabeth came to our boat for
PRE-dinner drinks and we all dined together at the restaurant selected as #1 by
trip advisor. The local oysters were just shucked so they were excellent and
then we all either had a duck dish or veal dish, both being served in
individual pots as they were casserole style and absolutely scrumptious. Our
blond waitress was charming and flirted with the guys of course, giving us all
a good laugh. It was handy having Peter to select the very good French wine as
his knowledge of them is so much greater than ours.
As
we travelled down the coast to Le Havre, in company with Ananda (the boat
belonging to Peter and Elizabeth), we passed by extremely high white cliffs for
almost the entire coastline - much more impressive than Dover. When ever there
is a dip in the cliffs there is a village right on the shore and we had a sense
that they would be extremely pretty places to visit by road. A couple have
harbours, but not deep enough for our boat.