grumeti

NORMANDY, BRITTANY, June 2011 *download PDF*

The year of the EURO, how low can it get? Take advantage and travel in Euroland. But that was not the real reason why we had chosen to follow the coastline of Normandy and Brittany; it looks like we followed the food or better the Restaurants !! We have been numerous times to Normandy for over 10 years as our holiday home is close to Honfleur, now that became our starting point for a 2 weeks journey towards home. The weather was hot and very sunny for the 3 weeks we stayed in our place and once we left, what do you expect, it turned cloudy, windy and some rain. Urs always appreciates that kind of weather as he finds clear blue sky very boring! Means we had the perfect mix for him and his photo takings. The starting point was the highway A13 to Caen turning on the N13 to Bayeux. If you have never been there , Caen has a university and the famous WWII Memorial, Bayeux offers a famous wall tapestry, we ignored all this and took the exit for Sainte-Mère-Èglise, where you will find John Steele hanging on the church tower. The parachute soldier who during D-day got “caught by the church “ and did pretend he was dead until he was saved. The famous story. We are now on the back roads to UTAH beach, the US landing beach, as it was a few days after June 6th, there were still flowers in honour of the invasion Anniversary looking small Hotel, Chateau de Quineville with Restaurant ), Further down the coast the fishing village St. Vaarst-la-Hougue with its Museum Island, because of the tide differences, you could go by boat or same vessel becomes a boatcar with tires at low tide. To get to our Hotel , des Ormes, we drove 145km from Pont-Audemer, which did allow us to Stop and enjoy sites on the way. See above Crossing the Manche peninsula to the other side to arrive in Barneville-Carteret where we had booked the Hotel des Ormes for 2 nights. Location directly on the sailing harbour, newly decorated, we had a ground floor room in beige/brown colours and a large shower. Disadvantage at low tide we could not open the windows, to say it diplomatically, it stinks !! www.hoteldesormes.fr
Surprise, the village has only 1000 hab. but lots of tourist and plenty of cars with a Swiss license plate, did we miss something? Why are they here? Maybe the reason is the car ferry to the channel islands, it takes only 45min from here. The next day we visited La Hague, nuclear power plant peninsula, interesting landscape, great views but who wants to live here? On the way back to our Hotel we passed the Dune Park of Biville, very impressive landscape, for miles only beach, dunes and NO people ! Back to the village, dinner at the Restaurant La Marine also a Hotel, www.hotelmarine.comVery recommendable Restaurant, true Norman Cuisine and fair price.
Continue our journey driving along the coast stopping in Granville for a cup of coffee, bigger town than expected. It was too hot to explore more of the city to find something interesting. We planned to have lunch just in front of the Mont Saint Michel and we did. Strangely our memories of the food and Restaurant were better than the reality on our plate, so not worth to mention it.
Mont St Michel as always one big queue of tourist wanting to go on the rock ! We skipped that as we have been there before and maybe one day we manage to stay over night in the little Hotel on the rock, meaning when the tourists are gone for the day we would be still there and have it to us, I imagine (wishful thinking perhaps)

next page >