Locked down, but not locked in

Well - France has finally responded to the corona virus (more properly, SARS-CoV-2), with closure of all restaurants, cafes, bars, schools, and "non-essential" businesses. Prime minister Macron will address the nation tonight at 8PM, and it is expected that measures to mitigate the spread of the virus will be tightened.

Meanwhile: we still had the car that we rented last Friday. We called Enterprise and discovered that there would be no issue with us retaining the car through Thursday morning - so we will. This enabled us to spend the day hiking and visiting nearby ports on the west coast of the Cherbourg peninsula.

Regarding the virus, we figured:

• If one of us has it, the other does, or soon will, too, so there's no point distancing from each other.
• Travel by car isn't going to aid transmission in either direction.
• Walking in essentially deserted areas won't hurt anything, either.

The most potentially dangerous thing we did today was visit the downtown Carrefour first thing in the morning to stock up on basics (pasta, UHT milk, coffee, TP, tissues, etc.). It was not very crowded, and people seemed to be making an effort to remain at a distance from each other. There were lines taped on the floor at the checkout counters to remind shoppers not to crowd together while in line. It was all very orderly, and we felt much better once we were sure we had essentials for at least 2 weeks.

SO - into the car, and off to the west coast.

Our first stop was the south side of Cap Le Rozel, which has a spectacular beach. We walked the beach and then hiked on paths on the bluff above, and south of, the beach. The weather was spectacular -- an almost cloudless blue sky, warm sun, and very little wind - nothing like the weather we have come to expect from Cherbourg.

The beach at Cap Le Rozel, from the southern bluffs

From there we drove slowly northward, stopping to walk whenever the opportunity presented itself, such as at this B and B in Le Rozel.

North of Le Rozel we found trails that curve around steep bluffs, with the Atlantic crashing onto the rocks below for accompaniment.

Our final stop was the harbor at Diélette. I may be able to add pictures from Katy's camera at a later date.

France is beautiful. Spring is arriving, and hopefully it won't be entirely spoiled by disease.

Touring east of Cherbourg

Today we had the second partly-sunny day in a row, with no rain in the forecast until the evening, so we decided to rent a car and do some walking in the harbor towns east of Cherbourg. We have visited these before, but under less-than-ideal conditions, so being able to get out and walk without (much) fear of being rained on was really nice.

Our first stop was Gatteville Lighthouse (Phare de Gatteville), the second lighthouse east of Cherbourg. This picture is actually from our earlier visit, made shortly after we returned from our trip to Dusseldorf for the big European boat show.

The tide was very high, with waves crashing over the seawalls on the access road.

[See the update to this, below.]

From there we drove to the nearby town of Barfleur, which has a harbor with a nearly 10-meter tidal swing during spring tides (which is what we had today). Katy took some pictures (not shown here) of the boats actually floating; the last time we were there, they were sitting on the seabed.

There is a lovely church at the entrance to the harbor, which has this sad, if attractive, memorial.

In memory of the fishermen of Barfleur and the surrounding area perished at sea

It seems that all French towns, no matter how small, have at least one very nice Catholic church.

Our next stop was Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, which has an much larger harbor but, unlike Barfleur, well protected from the raw tidal swing by a lock at the harbor entrance. We walked around the harbor and through the town, and had lunch and coffee. Between lunch and coffee, we discovered this nearly-hidden semi-public garden. I just loved the rooflines from the interior.

We also shopped for some specialty foods at Maison Gosselin, which our landlord, Christian, had suggested we visit, and took in a shop near the harbor that had lovely hand-painted postcards. It also had a serving dish with this image, which really captures life on the Cherbourg peninsula in winter.

By then it was almost supper time, so we drove back to Cherbourg and our apartment, making a second, low-tide stop at Phare de Gatteville on the way. Fittingly, it started to sprinkle just as we were walking from the parking lot to our front door.

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So much for the travelogue. You may be wondering how we are. Well, life in Cherbourg is quite pleasant. Our apartment is cozy (small, but comfortable),  there's an excellent farmer's market on Saturdays (and other days, too, but that's the big one), and our boat is coming along well. Katy and I are, IMO, adapting well to being together nearly all the time. We get pissy with each other occasionally, but actually less so than I think we did in Cambridge. We really enjoy cooking together, and with the excellent fresh ingredients we have here, we've been eating very well. We both have folding bicycles, and I've been riding at least 10km most mornings, and usually much more. I've lost a lot of weight, and feel great.

I am loving being retired.

That said - we miss our friends and family pretty ferociously, and that's been aggravated by the scary news we get regarding COVID-19. Given our somewhat solitary live style, I think we're unlikely to be stricken by it soon, and since we're both in pretty decent health, we're not terribly worried about it. But we do worry about all of you back in the U.S. It seems like this will hit the dance and music communities very hard -- not necessarily the illness itself, but the knock-on effects of cancelled dances and concerts. 

It's also strange watching the presidential election season play out from the other side of the Atlantic. We both voted via absentee ballots in the primary and will vote in the general election, but we don't really discuss politics much with each other. That's perhaps a good thing, since it's so generally unsettling. But events in the U.S. feel remote and somewhat unreal. 

We enjoy getting email from y'all, and we're also available on WhatsApp and Signal. Ping us!

-- Jerry

Update to our visit to Gatteville Lighthouse

The day after this entry was posted, we drove back out to Barfleur and walked up the lighthouse - 350 steps or so. The actual light is really nifty.

The view from the platform is pretty incredible.

Towards Cherbourg

Towards Balfleur