Le Havre was flattened. Allied bombing in September 1944 destroyed the old centre, and the French state hired the architect Auguste Perret to rebuild it, which he did in reinforced concrete, with straight boulevards, uniform apartment blocks and a grid of open squares. At first the town seemed grim. Today UNESCO calls it a masterpiece of postwar reconstruction, listed in 2005, and in the right light the concrete takes on a warm, pale-gold tone. The tower of the church of Saint-Joseph, over a hundred metres high, is the landmark, and inside, the light through its coloured glass is dazzling, a thing worth ten minutes of anyone's time.
The city has an older story as France's Atlantic port. It was founded in the early sixteenth century by King Francis I because the nearby harbours were silting up, and it later became the departure point for ocean liners. Monet painted the harbour at sunrise in 1872, in the picture that gave Impressionism its name, and the town still holds a museum with a fine collection of his circle. Sainte-Adresse, along the cliffs, was his subject in another painting, and its pebble beach and old villas have kept a seaside feel.
For riding, Le Havre is a gateway more than a destination. The Pont de Normandie, a long cable-stayed bridge opened in 1995, carries you across the Seine estuary to Honfleur and the Normandy coast, and on a clear day it is a thrilling bridge to cross, though the wind can be strong. To the north, the Pays de Caux plateau offers quiet farm roads, flint-walled villages and the white chalk cliffs of Étretat, around thirty kilometres away. Weather can change in minutes, with sea fog and sudden rain, and wet painted lines on the city's roads are slippery.
Fuel is easy in a city of nearly two hundred thousand, and ferries to England leave from the port. Parking for a bike near the centre is simple. Eat moules-frites near the harbour, and in summer look out for sea-salt caramel from local bakeries. Early morning, when the sun picks out the concrete and the harbour is grey and gold, is the time to be on the front.