Circumnavigating the UK- Honfleur- butterflies!

As mentioned a few weeks ago, I felt I should really finish writing about my last Summer's travels.  If you recall, I was on a 12 day cruise circumnavigating the UK.  Our final day's stop was to be the pretty town of Honfleur in Northern France.  Mum and I had no particular fixed idea about what we wanted to do and decided to walk around, find some brochures and then make a decision.

The town was really attractive, particularly this busy section around the river.

This old-fashioned merry-go-round reminds me of Amelie!

We decided to walk to a Butterfly House we'd seen on a map as both Mum and I adore butterflies.

I have tried to identify butterflies in retrospect as best I can but whilst I know my British butterflies, these Tropical ones are a bit of a guessing game comparing pictures.

Here is a Malachite.

The place was really warm but it was delightful to be surrounded by so many beautiful, huge tropical butterflies. However, it was extremely hard to get them to land and pose prettily for a photo.  Most of them were extremely flighty though, and just fluttered tantalisingly out of reach most of the time.

I was after this blue-tipped one for ages. Could this one be a Blue Morpho? I'm not sure.

This looks most like a Common Crow, but I am not sure if my identification is correct!

We soon discovered that the butterflies weren't alone and there were a whole host of other creatures within the tropical gardens.

A very strange low-pitched moaning attracted my attention and I caught this strange fellow lurking on top of a doorway.

I always love how much like eyes these outer wings seem.

Trying to photograph this beautiful turquoise prettily shaped one was a futile venture!

These pretty curved orange and spotty ones were positively docile by comparison. They look like a Golden Longwing

A wonderful opportunity suddenly presented itself when I spied this pair of Giant Swallowtail butterflies alongside a Blue Morpho one but I had to stand on one leg, leaning over a pond to take it at full zoom!

At long last! A Green Swallowtail!

This pretty marbled fellow sat on a leaf for a while but his wings were constantly on the go- this is the least-blurred of a myriad photos! I think he's called a  Paper Kite or a Rice Paper but then again, he resembles a Wood Nymph too!

This one below looks like a Tailed Jay.

I think this is called a Tiger Longwing.

This strange and detailed one really reminded me of a cat! I think it may be called a Clipper.

More watching eyes...Apparently this is called an Owl Butterfly.  How wonderfully appropriate!

This one looks also like a Blue Morpho  (ventral) from the outside.

A variety of a Lacewing here.

Hello Giant Swallowtail!

This resembles a Gap-banded swallowtail.

This one looks like a Lacewing.

What I failed to capture on film is the moment a butterfly landed on my hand! My camera had died by this point.

Afterwards, I had a yearning to visit the beach so we made an extremely lengthly and tiresome trudge to a beach which appeared much nearer on the map.  The tide was right out and the beach, to be honest, was rather yucky.  I regret dragging Mum all that way in my haste and causing her to be tired.

After this, we headed back to town to look for somewhere for something to drink.

With a little perusal of shops, we eventually made our way back to the ship.

Honfleur was undoubtedly pretty and we were glad to have made its acquaintance, even if all our photos were of the butterflies!

Do you like visiting Butterfly houses?
xx