Houlgate, a Normandy beach town

Ben and I visited France in June of 2019. Our main reason for choosing France for our next adventure was the Women’s World Cup. We were hoping to also catch the French Open, but that was late May to early June. If only we were retired already…

We left a lot of our trip planning in the air, choosing to wait until we got in the country to decide what we wanted to see. We knew two definite dates: the Chile and Sweden games against the US in Paris and Honfleur. And we knew we wanted to see the landing beaches along Normandy. I loved the flexibility this gave us in our trip. Ben buys a SIM card for his phone, so we have data to research whatever we need. These plans tend to have more than enough data for our purposes, especially when the places we stay have free WiFi.

I don’t think we’d have found Houlgate if I’d booked all our lodging before the trip. We chose it because it was an easy drive to Honfleur for the game and it looked like a beautiful beach town. We booked an apartment through Airbnb which ended up being on the top floor of an old hotel. The lady that met us didn’t speak any English, but we managed to check in through signals, my broken French and Google translate. Yep, it can’t translate reindeer nor is it perfect at deciphering text, but it works in a pinch.

The apartment had a small balcony from which we could see the ocean. Though it was too small for chairs, we still enjoyed the view and left the doors open for the breeze.

The next day was a beautiful sunny day. A bit breezy which brought a chill to the air, but a gorgeous day to walk around town. We started at the beach; lots of people were enjoying the day.

We came across a group of kids learning to sail. We had noticed them earlier in the morning from our balcony. The boats were set up a distance from the water, and no one was out yet. By the time we got to the beach, the tide had risen to where the boats were. We learned that tides have a large swing between low and high tides, over 40 feet in some places!

It was pretty entertaining to watch the kids, and we weren’t the only ones enjoying it. The instructors had the “just thrown them into it and they’ll figure it out” philosophy. The instructors would tow them past the breaks and leave them to sail. Some of the kids had very concerned looks as the guide boat left them. I’m not sure what instructions they were given–were they supposed to wait for everyone at that spot? Some did; others started off to some unknown place. They were scattered all around.

After some time, we continued our walk. The architecture is beautiful, as it is in all of France. There was a lot to see as we headed into the town center. We saw that a photo festival was coming soon. Here’s some photos of our walk.

We ate lunch at a wonderful cafe. It was a great day of relaxing amidst a very busy tour of Normandy. In the afternoon, we drove to Le Havre for the World Cup game against Sweden. It was a smaller stadium than the one in Paris which was perfect–we had amazing seats! The women played well, it was a great game to watch.