Portsmouth International Port – Le Havre

Having made it to Portsmouth last night, I had a lazy start to the day today. My hotel was within walking distance of the ferry port and I wasn’t due to depart until 11am. I walked down the road from my hotel and found a small cafe for breakfast. Poached egg on toast and a mug of tea was just the job.

Like most ferry ports, Portsmouth doesn’t go out of it’s way to welcome foot passengers. I couldn’t immediately see how to get to the terminal, but after seeing some crew members emerging from behind a building guessed that going the opposite way was what was needed.

We departed on time, and I enjoyed the views of the shipyards from on deck. This may well be the first time I’ve ever seen an aircraft carrier

I’d booked what they described club class. This was a small room in the corner of the ship with more comfortable seats and free soft drinks and biscuits. Not quite up to the standard of other ferries I’ve used, but it did the job.

Part way through the crossing I went down to the restaurant and had their vegan chilli on a baked potato. With low expectations from how it looked I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually very tasty.

This crossing is quite long, over 6 hours, but I passed the time easily enough. About an hour out from Le Havre we hit a bank of fog. The ship slowed right down and used its foghorn every minute. It was quite dramatic, rather like a scene from a (disaster?) movie but cleared as we approached the French coast.

I was struck as we entered the harbour by what looked like huge coloured blocks on the waterfront and decided I’d try to get a closer look later on.

We disembarked in a car rather than a bus, which was rather odd, but with so few foot passengers it probably made sense to do it this way.

Formalities in the harbour took a couple of minutes and I was on my way into town, noting again the complete lack of signage on where to go.

Just outside the ferry port is what looked like an old dry dock.

My hotel was right next to the station, so a good walk from the ferry. When I arrived, I asked the lady on reception for advice on places to see, and her suggestion for the best way to get to the town centre. Her reply amused me, “do you like the rain? Look behind you!”

Sure enough in the couple of minutes since I’d arrived the heavens had opened and it was torrential. She offered me an umbrella and suggested that the tram stop might be the place to head for as the town was maybe half an hour away. I decided instead to pause for breath, go to my room and see if it cleared up.

The room was rather high tech. Everything was controlled from a touchpad, and it was one of these increasingly seen places where the shower is in the main room space, though this one did have a curtain that you could draw around it. Something I’d not seen before was that the TV was replaced by a projector on the ceiling that displayed a picture on the opposite wall at the foot of the bed. Theoretically I could hook my laptop up to this to watch stuff but I couldn’t get the technology to work so didn’t bother. In any case by now the rain had eased and I was ready to explore.

My first stop was the railway station. With an early departure tomorrow I wanted to get my bearings. The hotel is the building in the background of the first picture below, so really couldn’t be any closer.

I rather liked the entrance of the station, with coloured glass panels.

Back outside the station I hopped onto a tram to the end of the line, which is the beach. It is a gravel beach but in the setting sun was rather attractive. I very much liked the large sculpture on the beach. An online search turned up the following information, which is quite lengthy but I thought was interesting :

To celebrate its 500th anniversary, the city of Le Havre organised an unprecedented urban art event in 2017, called ” A Summer in Le Havre .”
For six months, two million visitors explored the city, discovering original works of art installed in public spaces. The highlight of this first edition was undoubtedly the abstract sculpture UP#3, created by the artist duo Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann.
This immense white portico, twelve metres wide and ten metres high, installed on Le Havre beach as if emerging from the pebbles, quickly became a favourite with both locals and visitors.
Given this enthusiasm, the City decided to keep the artwork. However, since it was designed to last only for the duration of the festivities, its materials—white melamine panels fixed to a tubular metal structure—did not allow for this. It was therefore decided to replace it with an identical structure capable of withstanding the marine environment over the long term.
Vinci Construction France and its subsidiary GTM Normandie Centre then offered to carry out this reconstruction free of charge as part of a skills-based sponsorship, with the aim of delivering the structure for the 2018 edition of “A Summer in Le Havre.”
In order to preserve the clean aesthetic of the original, an architectural white concrete was selected, with a formulation offering excellent resistance to sea spray and salt air.
Delivered in early July 2018, UP#3 is now an integral part of the landscape.

Edited from the source (in French)

Passing through the town by tram, I’d realised that the architecture was almost all in a single coherent style, presumably following post-war reconstruction. Unlike some towns engineered in this way, this one has real charm, and later additions have been equally well thought about. A residential tower block where each floor was at a different angle to the one below it particularly caught my eye.

The coloured blocks turned out to be shipping containers, and were even more impressive close up than at a distance. The structure was fenced off and it appears that work is being done on the foundations but what an incredible thing. I can’t begin to work out how it was assembled, but I bet a number of cranes were involved!

At this moment, it started to drizzle slightly and the most beautiful rainbow appeared. The ferry I had arrived on was just departing and was perfectly framed by this.

The drizzle moved away, though the rainbow persisted for a while as I walked back to the town centre past some docks and the twisted tower block, once more.

I found a footbridge over one of the docks, which had the most incredible slopes on either side. They clearly have found a great non-stick surface as I felt that I should be losing my footing as I descended the far side. A group of lads on scooters came down behind me, loudly enjoying the acceleration down the slope.

This really is a great place for civic art. My next discovery was this very strange narrow house. It can be visited (though not at this time of night) but at the opposite end to the entrance is too narrow to walk down. I looked through the windows at both ends and wondered how they maintain it!

The one thing I’d not found during my walk was somewhere to eat. In the end I stopped for a takeaway and ate it walking back to my room, overlooking the hotel.

I realised that I had forgotten to pack my international adapter and whilst the room had USB sockets to let me charge my phone, I would not be able to plug in the laptop. I went down to reception to ask if they could suggest anywhere I could buy one in the morning. They very kindly offered to loan me one, and also made a suggestion for the morning.

I really like this hotel. The staff are lovely, the location is great and Le Havre feels like a I place that I need to spend more time in.