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Le Mans 1990 - Ayse's Story Updated

Page 6 - The End of the 5th Le Mans Trip - to Cancale, Honfleur and Home...

 

 

The race over, it was back to the car again, and off to our Sunday overnight spot.  It pleased me greatly to be going back again to the Hotel Continental at Concale, where, as always, we were greeted warmly by our host, and we had an excellent evening meal, majoring on superb local seafood, preceded by that wonderful 'annual' wash and brush up.

 

    

An early morning start saw all four of us investigating the Monday morning market stalls down on the quay, where they were selling oysters of all shapes and sizes for an equally wide variety of prices.  Not surprisingly, none of us was to be tempted at that time of the morning!  Coffee and croissants was rather more the order of the day.

          

From Concale in the morning, it was off on the journey back to Le Havre, from where we would make our return journey to Portsmouth.  But not before lunch, however!  We stopped off at Honfleur for lunch, although it took us some time to pick a suitable restaurant from those on offer.

                   

Alan indulged in the fruits de mer that are always a favourite at French "seaside" restaurants, but I limited myself to one of my favourite fish dishes - skate, known to the French as "rai."   Normally I content myself with a simple pepper and vinegar accompaniment to skate, however, on this occasion, I was treated to a butter and caper sauce - very tasty!

 

Le Mans 1990 therefore drew to a very satisfactory conclusion.  Without any doubt whatsoever, this was by far the best Le Mans to date.  The company was superb and, having travelled with Ian, Alan and Martin for the previous three years (four with Ian and Alan), we seemed to be a very well-matched group.  The result of the race was also a subject for celebration, with Jaguars finishing both first and second.  This one was likely to be very hard to beat!

(Post-Edit note:  The cards above were obtained from the hotel a few years ago - the right hand one probably in 2009 (my last visit there) and the other some time earlier.  The hotel is of course still there and uses the same website address (and contact email) - www.hotel-cancale.com    It remains my favourite hotel that we used in my 24 trips with the Tourists (and they are still using it!).  Lovely accommodation in a beautiful place with glorious seafood - and they're not paying me to say so!).