48 hours in Le Havre

Normandy/2023

François I, Claude Monet, Raoul Dufy, André Malraux, Auguste Perret, Oscar Niemeyer... Le Havre's history is one of astonishing name-dropping. Destroyed by bombs and rebuilt in a modernity that has given it unity and identity, the city has shaken off its grey port image to draw attention to its colorful houses, gardens and museums. A revival worth discovering.

Dunkirk, Lorient, Toulon... Le Havre belongs to the club of wounded cities, those which the Allies took in their sights at the end of the Second World War and which suffered devastating bombardments. They have all retained bitter complexes. Like its sister cities, Le Havre counted its dead and hastily rebuilt to house the victims. Luckily, Auguste Perret, the man who had already built the Palais d'Iéna in Paris, the king of fast-and-cheap concrete and the post-and-beam system, took the job in hand, arriving with 100 architects. Fast and cheap, certainly, but also durable: it's surprising today to see these beige and grey ensembles, fanning out from the port, so well preserved. And when you visit the show apartment, you'll be amazed: luminous, flowing volumes, luxuriously parqueted; highly desirable Cepac block kitchens ("ancestor" of Ikea); René Gabriel furniture to die for. So much so, in fact, that Unesco has classified the entire complex. If only you could, you'd sign up right away to move into this unparalleled modernity. Preferably in a building facing the port, so that every morning you can go and browse the stalls overflowing with turbot, sole and scallops at the fish market in the Saint-François district, and then contemplate all day long the dance of the boats all the way to the Seine estuary, where the sea and the river kiss. Ah! the port. Harbors, in fact: the historic part of the port reserved for pleasure boating and cruising dates back to the reign of François I. Later, in the 17th century, the harbor was converted into a port. Later, in the 17th century, shipowners covered in gold thanks to the coffee, cotton and chocolate trade (but also, less gloriously, the slave trade) blessed François' choice. Then, in the 20th century, Jacques Chirac made his contribution by launching his Port 2000 project in 1995, with the aim of rivalling those of the Nordic countries (it cost four times as much as the Millau Viaduct). This gargantuan facility, the stronghold of the dockers, can digest up to 6,500 containers a day, giving birth to a dreamlike noria of heavy goods vehicles. And then, further north, there's the port of raw materials, with the less glamorous image of its oil tankers, liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers, gas carriers and cement manufacturers. Le Havre prefers to focus on its cruise ships (although there are surprisingly no museum traces of them anywhere, the city was the home port of the France and the Normandie). 350,000 passengers pass through here every year, and the terminal will soon be given a facelift to accommodate twice as many. Whereas ten years ago, cruise passengers would rush off to Deauville, Mont-Saint-Michel or Paris, half of them now decide to linger in the city. The "industrial Venice" has worked hard to change its image, inviting internationally renowned artists to take a fresh look at the city since the 500th anniversary of its foundation in 2017. Under the leadership of Jean Blaise - artistic director of "Le Voyage à Nantes" - "Un été au Havre" (A summer in Le Havre) is further cementing its status as an urban and cultural destination. As you walk back to your Perret apartment, you come across the monumental works of art that have been sown over the years. You've just taken a walk to the top of the "Côte", through the sumptuous Jardins suspendus (hanging gardens) - as in Babylon - which pay tribute to the botanical explorers who embarked from these quays. You walked back down Montmartre's romantic staircases, past a Carmelite convent where nuns make delicious jams in a garden of Eden open to passers-by. Once again, you've admired the shipowners' houses (one of which is now a museum) and the Villa Dufayel, a reminder of the promoter who wanted to turn his town into a new Deauville in the 1900s. You took your aperitif at Le Bout du Monde, that little beach bar facing the horizon, and returned along the seafront promenade that stretches 4 kilometers from Sainte-Adresse and skirts so many incredible villas. Along the way, you picked up a book from the shelves of the welcoming library nestled in the heart of Niemeyer's "Volcan". In front of the André-Malraux Museum of Modern Art (MuMa), which houses a dazzling collection of Impressionist works, you thought of Claude Monet. From his room at the Hôtel de l'Amirauté, he strove to capture the impalpable light of the English Channel in his Impression, Sunrise, which changed the history of painting. You too can contemplate this changing light from your balcony. The horizon is dotted with glittering fireflies: as night falls, these monsters of the sea hurrying towards France's leading port become works of art too. Hidden or not, they're everywhere here. G. B.