Imagine Van Gogh, Le Havre

Earlier in the week Lois Bender and I ran up to Le Havre for the day (a 2 hr train ride) to see the Imagine Van Gogh Immersive on till September 1 at Carée de Docks and just a short walk from the train station. We went to see the Dufy Retrospective at the Musee d'art moderne André Malraux later but that's another story. Le Havre is always a shock. Completely flattened in WWII. Industrial but with a wonderful harbor full of boats of all sizes. Of course I saw the l'Atelier  des Lumieres Van Gogh show in Paris, but something drew me to see the Le Havre version.

And I was right. It was a much more immersive experience showing 200 paintings large scale.

And I preferred the all-classical, mostly French background music .

Simply perfection.

It would have been nice to have seats like the Paris animation but then maybe people would stay all day instead of 30-40 minutes.

I sat on the floor like others and let the experience float over me. Deeply emotional.

It was good to see related images (like groupings of his sunflowers) instead of just one image repeated in varying sizes. More immersive that way.

Naturally I felt compelled to get out 'Vincent's bedroom' and paint it again and again.

Food-wise we hit it lucky. I had been dreaming of a seafood shack like Surf City, NJ etc. While traipsing over to the Dufy exhibit (everyone told us, "Oh its only a 5-10-15 minute walk"). It seemed more like 35. We stumbled on a small place sitting right next to the fish markelt, Bistrot du P'tit Port. Very unassuming to look at but when I saw the lunch formule (18,50€) included a starter of fruits de mer + moules (or fish)I was happy as a clam. Trip Advisor gives it a 47 out of 148 Le Havre restos. Top that! (Proper cherrystone clams are so damn hard to find in France. Its deeply frustrating, though they do have them in Amsterdam so all is not lost). Thanks for reading and sharing Parisbreakfast. Subscription Paris letters 💌, maps and watercolors are in my Etsy shop. With love💋from Paris🐻