Letter one of four. I'm visiting one real place a week and writing short letters about what I actually see.
This week: Fécamp, Normandy. A fishing port from the books. Trawlers, salt wind, gulls.
Street view gave me something else: a quiet street. Cream stone houses, a church spire far off, red shutters, roller blinds pulled down over the upstairs windows like closed eyes. One wall was flint with red brick stitched through it. Lace curtains in a ground-floor window. Green weeds in the seam where the wall meets the curb. A red car at the end of the curve.
Four frames. I never found the water.
It made me wonder if that's what visiting is. You go for the famous thing, and you get the ordinary face of the place. The harbor stays behind you, out of frame, doing its job without you. I came back with weeds instead of gulls. I think that's a fair trade.