In a departure from our hexagonal trip, we stayed in Paris for a week – the longest stretch we’ve been there since 1996 – in a large, sunny studio with a tiny kitchen and the smallest bathroom I’ve ever seen outside of a dollhouse. The 18th arrondissement was absolutely packed with tourists – who says there’s an economic crisis?

View from the Eiffel Tower © LKL

I had a whole list of places I wanted to visit, and we made it to most of them, including Fauchon, the gourmet grocer where I bought some terrific tomato-truffle sauce, and E. Dehillerin, supplier of professional – and incredibly expensive – cooking supplies. Prices aren’t listed anywhere that I could see, so arriving at the caisse was a real eye-opener.

Jardin de Luxembourg © LKL

We rented bikes a couple of times when walking got to be too much, picnicked in Jardin de Luxembourg, Parc de la Villette, and Bois de Boulogne – we also rented a row boat in the latter. And we had coffee at Les Deux Magots, went to the top of the Eiffel Tower (thanks to online reservations, took a cruise along the Seine, and rode La Grande Roue. All in all, a great week.

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About 6 corners of the Hexagon

Palais Bénédictine © LKL

In Eu, we had our picnic in the field right in front of the château‘s garden. The drive along the coast was absolutely beautiful, and so was the town of Fécamp. We did a quick dégustation at the Palais Bénédictine, one of the odder buildings I’ve seen in a while.

Honfleur © LKL

Honfleur is very cute and flowery (kind of like Port Grimaud). We were there for an afternoon 15 years ago, but it didn’t seem remotely familiar to me.

In Rouen, we tried to find the places we’d visited in 1995, with some success. We couldn’t find our favorite café, though, which was very disappointing.

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About 6 corners of the Hexagon

Amiens’s cathedral © LKL

We spent two days on a farm in Caours, enjoying the pool and just taking it easy, though we did manage to get over to Amiens to visit the stunning cathedral. It’s the tallest complete cathedral in France, with the greatest interior volume. Someone told me that two of Paris’s Notre Dame could fit inside.

And we went to St.-Valery-sur Somme, which is a nice beachside town, but it was full of tourists and the weather was lousy, so we didn’t stick around.

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About 6 corners of the Hexagon

Hôtel de Ville, Calais © LKL

After the second corner, we headed on to Calais, which was prettier than I’d expected. There was a brocante in the street in front of our chambre d’hôtes, and the nearby park was host to a terrific exhibit called Vivants (enormous, stunning photos of animals) from GoodPlanet.org, the organization founded by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.

Montreuil’s ramparts © LKL

The next day we continued west, stopping briefly in Cap Blanc-Nez before heading toward Le Touquet-Paris-Plage. This being in early August, 98.2% of Parisians* were also going there, so traffic was horrendous. We quickly decided to go instead to the beautiful town of Montreuil, where we had a picnic on the ramparts, overlooking a lovely field.

*An estimate, but not much of an exaggeration, I don’t think.

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About 6 corners of the Hexagon

On our way to the second corner, we drove to Bergues, the Most Beautiful Village that also turned out to be the filming location of Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis. We were lucky in that it was Monday, which happened to be market day amd is always accompanied by a “concert” of church bells. We climbed to the top of the belfry and listened to most of it there. Wonderful.

Next we drove to Bray-Dunes, parked the car, and carried our picnic supplies nearly 2 kilometers to what we assumed was the border with Belgium. Then we had to walk another kilometer down to the water in order to take our pictures at the real corner. It’s kind of hard to find the exact spot, as there are no signs, and my GPS says we haven’t yet arrived at the neighboring country even as my cell phone company sends me an SMS with that country’s calling rates. But I reckon we got pretty close.

Here’s our map from the first corner to the second. Once again, pink indicates our route as well as towns we actually walked around and/or ate in. Blue highlights where we stayed. You can click the map to see a much bigger version, but I recommend either high-speed internet or patience, as it is 2.5 MB.

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About 6 corners of the Hexagon