Normandy ideas?

[Chainsaw]

Hi All,

Heading off to Normandy for a wee holiday and looking for some 'must sees' to well... see. Interested in the D-Day history stuff but as we will have our other halves with us we are going to hit up Bayeux and Mont Saint-Michel too.

Best D-Day places and museums to visit?
Good markets/towns to visit?
Castles/Chateaus/winerys?
Good places to eat/drink?

All suggestions welcome!

Thanks,
Alan

 

[saxonaxe]

Depends how you are crossing the Channel Alan, but the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry service is pretty efficient and it would land you in Dieppe. Scene of the ill fated Dieppe Raid 1942.
I haven't been to Dieppe for a few years but the town museum once had a lot of interesting stuff from that event on show.
Just outside the town is a War Graves Commission Cemetery where many of the Canadian and other casualties from the raid are buried.

On the touristy side, it's a fishing/Seaport and has a weekly market, plus the usual Super Markets, antique shops and a Castle/Chateau on the edge of town. Dieppe was favoured as a get away place by Parisienes so restaurants, cafes etc: might be up to scratch if you like French food, but I can't vouch for that though as the reek of decomposing French cheese, Sea Food and Gauloise cigarettes used to frighten me away to the Pomme Frites van if I was ashore and hungry....

 

[abilou]

I think there is a Tiger tank just east of Caen. Most of the D day stuff is good but the American cemetery at Omaha beach is overwhelming.

 

[Janne]

The Grand Bunker is interesting. Good stuff around Cap Griz Nez.
La Coupole rocket (V1) launch site.

( not Normandy, but close...)

I walked on the landing beaches and thought it was very interesting and moving.
Get a book written by Major and Mrs Holt, Battlefield Guide series, about the D day landings. Imo they write the best ones.

 

[Erbswurst]

Carpet in Bayeux of course.
Mont Saint-Michel is good.

The youth hostel of Cancale is perfectly located at the beach, outside the town, very nice!
They have a camping ground too, but I prefere there to rent a room, what is cheap and the better option.

At the harbour in Cancale, looking to the sea in the very left point of the restaurants and shops, where the street comes down from the town they sell oysters very cheap. It looks like a small market.
You can sit there on a wall, looking to the sea and oyster farm and just throw the shells back in the sea.
The French eat theyr oysters there. A museum they have too, in the a bit hidden smaller church, but I didn't see it. (My job is to hang there posters in shops, no time to see museums)

At the beach, perhaps 20 minutes by car eastern from Bayeux is a small WW2 museum. Unfortunately I forgot the name of the town, but possible that I find the receipt later, from the Surplus shop wich isn't so bad. It's perhaps 3 Minutes to walk from the museum on the opposite side of a large empty place and the shop is next to a Restaurant.

If you stand at the harbour in Fecamp, looking to the sea, at the left side is in the end a casino. Upstairs there you reach a fantastic located camping ground on the hill. You camp there on the rock. The street goes different, but you will find it. It is simply in the end of the buildings there, directly over the casino.

Not so much to see there, but important is the Castle of William the Conqueror in Fecamp, what is a nice town with several good restaurants between harbour and camping ground. Next to the castle is a church, that is located a few minutes away from the harbour, but inside the historic town at the land side.

Yes, and the rest is simply France how it is nearly everywhere: Incredibly lovely, outstanding interesting and very very friendly!

Don't stay to long in Bayeux if you go there in the summer!
I asked in a bakers shop there, where I had a coffee, in French of course and with my German accent, which occupation was more disturbing them. Our few years with a few guys at the beach, or the hundreds and thousands of Americans who run there around now a days?
She was laughing.

 

[Erbswurst]

Interesting too is Cherbourg.

The camping municipal on the left side of the town, if you look to the sea, is very simple and not very lovely, but the campers are very friendly and the ladies who run it too.

After one minute walk through the tunnel you reach the beach, at your right side on the hill you see a little restaurant.

Every thing what stands there around, grey or green is a german bunker. (I guess the camping place itself is part of the german fortification too.)

The signs at the way along the beach explain you, that al large ships you know started there to America.
The incredible long wall in the water with its castles had bin a Napoleonic anti British project.

More at the right you find large Napoleonic stuff, which is made to avoid British visitors, and it's still closed for you, because inside is the French submarine base.
On the hills behind you are Napoleonic and German fortifications too, everywhere!
But that is a longer walk for a day, or even a day with the car, if you want to see all, there are a lot of fortifications of all centuries, and every thing is anti British!

But if you will go in the end to town to have dinner, they surely will serve you and be friendly to you!

;0)

Cherbourg is a large town. To see the fortifications around I recommend to use the car. But it is very interesting in my opinion. From the camping ground to the city centre you should go by car too.
That is a really long and not so nice way to walk.
But next to the camping ground, fife minutes walk, you find all you need:
Tobacco shop which sells coffee on the terrasse, nice people in there to talk a bit, very good bakers shops, fish and meet, several supermarkets, even a fishing rod shop is there.

In the first view it isn't the loveliest place in France, but I really like it!

 

[Erbswurst]

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[Erbswurst]

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[Janne]

Do they make wine in Normandy?
Calvados the apple juice for grown ups I know.

 

[Chainsaw]

Thanks all for the responses, time to go do some more research!

 

[Erbswurst]

Should you find wine, grown up in Normandy, please try it and let us know how it tasted!

;0)

 

[Janne]

Apple wine made there is nice. Not as nice as a ‘real’ scrumpy from UK though.

 

[Woody girl]

Apple wine made there is nice. Not as nice as a ‘real’ scrumpy from UK though.

Aar me ol acker, get thee ar virkin uv zummerzet natch darn thees drawst fer dewbit an theeal be a rarin te goo!
Yes it's English. That's how the old cider drinkers would talk... be careful with the cider!
(Translation. . Hello my old friend. Have a pint of scrumpy to drink for breakfast and you'll be raring to go. )

 

[Erbswurst]

Aah, I see!

Now I understand, why I easily can understand everybody everywhere in France, but get difficulties in the north-western areas.