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NORMANDY |
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Cotentin Peninsula |
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It’s quite incredible
that despite its turbulent history, the area has emerged as one of Normandy's
most picturesque, with breathtaking views, wide open beaches, undisturbed
villages and green pastures, a coast from the rough sealine of the Manche county
and more especially of the Cotentin peninsula is spectacular. Memories of
another invasion, the D-Day Landings of 1944, still linger along the Cotentin
Peninsula. Thousands of Allied troops poured ashore onto these magnificent
beaches in the closing stages of World War II. The port of Cherbourg, still a
strategic naval base, caps the Cotentin Peninsula.
Here is the “Museé régional du Cidre et du Calvados” and its companion “Musée de l’eau de Vie”, paying homage to the Norman zeal for extracting liquid fluids from the apple. Millet, Barbey d'Aurevilly, and more recently Jacques Prévert, have come to be associated with this scenery in the heart of the Cotentin region, the with historic Valognes opening to the South onto the region of Cassin and Plain, Sainte-Mère-Eglise and Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, now synonymous with the liberation by the Allies in 1944. To the West are Briquebec and Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, birthplace of Barbey d'Aurevilly, and once major strongholds built in the Middle Ages to guard the coast against invasion from the Channel Islands. |
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In
the past the COTENTIN peninsula was an island, and a southern band of low-lying
land and marshes, the Cotentin pass, now stretches between Lessay and Carentan.
Now it’s a very calm, peaceful and quiet, not touristy area of secret lanes,
close to nature, (farm and biological products) with unspoilt surroundings and
tranquillity.
