The first thing you can see when approaching from the sea is the tall tower of St Joesph church, this was one of the key projects that Perret designed himself, it is imposing if slightly phallic, but the inside is very impressive the tower has multi coloured glass and it gives the whole place an peculiar glow, making it very tranquil. The rest of the city is laid out on a grid and is all made of reinforced concrete, but there are subtle differences in the buildings. There are several plaza and gardens around the centre one of which contains the impressive cultural centre designed by Oscar Neiymeyer (architect of Brasilia).

I visited just two weeks after Le Havre was added to the list and there were banners coving the Town hall and flags flying all around the main square which was very nice to see. You can climb the Tower of the Town Hall to get a good over view of the city's lay out.

On the whole the site was nice but I didn't really feel that I was viewing something exceptional.

As I live in Portsmouth, in southern England I have regularly visited many of the northern French ports that are linked by ferry. I had been through Le Havre several times before (even sleeping in the ferry port at the end of a trip across Europe) but I couldn't bring myself to count it as a visited site, as I only really passed through. So I decided to put my dissertation to one side and have a day trip there to increase WHS my tally.

The good weather and novelty of being in a foreign country made it a worthwhile trip for me but I don't really think it is worth going out of your way for. As a WHS site I would say this is one of my least favourites. To get here you can travel up from Paris, it is just short of 3 hours by train if I remember correctly, or until mid 2005 at least you can get the ferry from Portsmouth.