Today was a very complicated travel day. I spent more time planning and fretting over the details of today’s transportation than I spent planning the entire rest of our trip!
The walking tour company provides a free shuttle back to Shannon Airport on Saturday mornings, but we didn’t think the shuttle would get us to the airport early enough to check-in for our Ryanair flight to France. After considering numerous possibilities, I finally decided to rent a car in Killarney for the drive to Shannon. We left our guesthouse in Killarney at 7:15 am, and the trip to Shannon took us about two hours. Charley quickly refreshed himself on how to drive on the other side of the road. We queued up at the Ryanair counter two hours before flight time and checked in numbers 45, 46 and 47. We had read that Ryanair was very strict on baggage weights, so I was especially relieved that we had packed well—Charley’s bag weighted 19.7 kilos and mine was 19.6. Just under the 20 kilo limit! (Of course, I ended up wearing my heavy hiking boots on the plane to get my bag under!)
It was another clear day, and our hour-and-a-half flight to the Beauvais Airport (north of Paris) was uneventful, but I was glad we had plenty of time at the airport. Kelly really enjoyed looking out the window as we flew over Ireland, England, and then France. We flew right over the Isle of Wight, just off the coast of southern England.
We have leased a car for our six weeks in France. The leased cars weren’t available at the Beauvais Airport—only at Charles de Gaulle. Kelly and I waited at the very small Beauvais Airport for almost three hours while Charley took a shuttle to de Gaulle to pick up our leased Renault. Since our route to Normandy would take us back past Beauvais and the shuttle was quite expensive, we decided that only Charley would make that trip. I was nervous about the three of us splitting up, and I hoped there wouldn’t be any problems getting the car and that Charley would easily find his way back to Beauvais. I stood out in front of the airport watching for about the last half hour… and was relieved when he drove up waving in our Renault Clio.
Finally we drove two hours to Honfleur, on the north coast of Normandy, arriving about 8:30 pm. Normandy is green and golden and lush…with forests and apple orchards… some rolling hills… fields of wheat and corn… grazing cows and horses. We passed through small villages—brightly colored half-timbered cottages, tall and narrow brick manor houses, cafes with outdoor tables. Our route took us by Rouen where we spotted the large cathedral, then headed toward the coast and Honfleur, just at the mouth of the Seine.
We’ve rented a very special cottage for the week from my fellow Slow Traveler Dave (“Happy in Paris”) McMane and his wife Aralynn. Dave and Aralynn are in Honfleur this weekend and met us at the cottage. We had a lovely dinner out on the terrace together. The sun didn’t go down until well after 10 pm. This was the night of a big World Cup match involving France, and we heard the cheers from the local bars when France scored and then when they finally won. Honfleur erupted in celebration.
