The Cotentin is that bit of Normandy that sticks up into the Channel like a
thumb. Well, more of a gigantic jetty, really - from which vigorous types
have been boating back and forth to Britain for centuries.
After the conquest, Norman worthies swished across La Manche from the
peninsula’s tip. Plantagenets arrived here to defend their French holdings.
And, much later, the Americans rolled ashore at Utah Beach on D-day,
bringing chewing gum, liberty and unavoidable destruction.
“Considering the hammering it’s taken, they’ve kept the place in remarkably
good nick,” I said to a temporary companion. We were overseeing a beach from
a heathy headland. “Clever people,” I said. “Full of Norman wisdom.” My
companion looked blank. The Cotentin is not, I concluded, getting the class
of visitor it deserves.
Indeed, on the evidence of the beach — empty but for a lone couple digging for
shellfish by the water’s edge — it’s not getting many visitors, full stop.
Which is very good. When we deserving people show up, it’s all for us.
We may therefore potter alone along lanes winding through the high-hedged
farmland. Then, without warning, we will burst out onto a seaside that
alternates an infinity of sand with edges rising high, rocky and ragged.
“Dramatic,” they say. “ Sauvage.” And they’re
right.
But Normans know their rock well (another blank look). They’ve attenuated the
wildness with nestling stone villages overcome with gardens and stalwart
serenity.
The seafood is terrific, the temperatures may be mild through spring and the
land’s been a hyphen between France and England for a thousand years. It’s
time to go. We start in Cherbourg.
DAY 1
Here, at least, you’ll not be the only Britons. Aside from motorists awaiting
the ferry, there’ll also be the yachting classes who’ve blown across from
Blighty. Locals used to go to considerable lengths (forts, etc) to keep us
out. Now the arms are open, especially if we’re spending.
And, despite the trashing it got in summer 1944, Cherbourg looks pretty
reasonable these days. It’s been put back together with dignity and a
cacophony of seafaring colour round the harbour.
Like all ports, the place has a spirit both serious and carefree. Well-tanned
folk in shorts and windcheaters have eyes on the tide charts but elbows on
the bar. Before settling down, walk the port, marvel at the flowers, the
abundance of pleasure boats at the landing stages like animals at feeding
troughs - and the sheer acreage of harbour. If they unravelled the walls,
they’d stretch to Southampton.
You’ll note Napoleon up on his horse, hand outstretched for seagulls to perch
upon. You’ll revel in the feeling of sheer possibility that ports provoke.
Then check into the Hôtel La
Régence (42 Quai Caligny; 00 33-2 33 43 05 16, doubles from £40).
Overlooking the inner harbour, it’s friendly, functional and covered in
horticulture. Dine there, too, from £13.
DAY 2
Across town to the old transatlantic terminal, now transformed into the Cité
de la Mer sea centre (adults £10, children under 17 £7). This is a
cracker, with a vertical 3,500fish tank running up through the middle, plus
absorbing news from the deep. Did you know that a tuna can swim at 50mph, 11
times faster than a herring?
Then you visit the Redoutable, a decommissioned but very real nuclear
submarine. It’s essentially an entire military base squeezed into a tin can.
Disappointingly, they’ve taken the missiles out, so there’s no holiday
opportunity to influence global geopolitics. Fascinating, all the same. And
the on-site cafe does a tolerable snack lunch.
Now east, along the coast to the Val-de-Saire, where heath and pasture
alternate and tiny lanes lead off to villages much preoccupied with
hydrangeas. Then, rather unexpectedly, they lead further - to tiny ports and
robust headlands.
To see what I mean, take the left-hander to Fermanville and out, through
gorse, fern and wind, to the fort on Cap Lévi. The coastal walking is
anorak, boots and bracing. Continue, bypassing Gatteville lighthouse (too
many steps, and you’ll get equally good views later), to Barfleur.
Park, stroll and ponder. Presently, the place is a small French fishing
village from central casting - grey-walled harbour, stone cottages, bobbing
boats. Its past appears, therefore, disproportionate. Barfleur was the
passage point for England-bound Norman kings and medieval nobs. Henry I
embarked here often. More vitally, his only legitimate son died when, in
1120, the White Ship went down just offshore. You won’t need reminding of
the anarchy into which that pitched 12th-century England. Big impact for a
little port, then. Nor is the present all it seems. Last summer, a mussel
boat sank a mile out, killing two crew. So “quaint” isn’t quite the word.
Head south towards Quettehou, dodging up the hill to La Pernelle for the
promised, splendid views - over sea and rumpled, regular landscape. And so
to St-Vaast-la-Hougue, a treat of a port, at once closed in tight upon
itself and wide open to the sea. Make for the Hôtel
de France et des Fuchsias (20 Rue Foch; 2 33 54 42 26, doubles from £31,
but go for the “luxe jardin” ones at £75). It’s a lovely old place, with
unsuspected gardens and an excellent restaurant (from £19pp). Then amble the
nighttime sea walls, feeling, perhaps, on the safe side of infinity.
DAY 3
You could ferry out to Tatihou, the low-slung island just offshore. But you
have to book ahead, it’s three hours out of the day - and a bloke in a bar
told me it was a tourist trap. If you go, perhaps you’d let me know if he
was right.
If you don’t, nip to the Sailors’ Chapel on the front, then to the Gosselin épicerie
fine on Rue de Verröe - a local Fortnum & Mason - for vital
supplies of pumpkin mousse, fish soup and more or less anything else, then
sing ho for Quinéville. Here starts the vast, straight shore that culminates
in Utah Beach. Quinéville itself boasts a first-rate little museum, Le
Mémorial de la Liberté Retrouvée (£4.30), covering
wartime France with panache.
Down the coast road - dunes on one side, lowlying farmland on the other - the Musée
du Débarquement (£3.50) is better still. Adapted from a former
blockhouse, it tells the story of the Utah Beach landings in engrossing
fashion.
Now wander the shore beyond, trying to fill it with noise and tanks, bodies
and the terror of young men. You can’t, of course. Contemporary calm is huge
and overwhelming. But the effort is not redundant.
Inland, to Ste-Marie-du-Mont, a charming village where, I’d guess, a sick cow
counted as big news... until the night before D-day, when US paras started
raining on the place. Panels round the village recount the resultant
pandemonium - including how two Germans skulking in the confessionals were
caught when one sneezed. These days, attention is back on the cows.
Up the road, SteMãre-Eglise is famous as the first French town liberated (by
other US paratroopers). Conceivably too famous: it’s become a sort of D-day
theme park.
Pop in anyway, to pay your respects, before slipping out of town, across the
deep farmland of the Cotentin marshes and, via St-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, to
Barneville-Carteret on the west coast. Here’s a resort where memories of
parasols, villas and other early-20th-century holiday requirements comfort
the 21st-century visitor no end.
Make for Barneville-Plage and the Hôtel
des Isles (9 Blvd Maritime; 2 33 04 90 76, doubles from £57, half-board
£50pp). A classic promenade hotel from the outside, it was renovated last
year in a light, airy, seaside-nouveau style. Dine overlooking the briny
(from £16), or across the inlet in its posher sister hotel, Des Ormes (from
£21).
DAY 4
Stroll the beach (it’s about the size of the Sahara) before tripping across to
the Carteret bit of town, round the cape where villas hide among shrubbery -
and out north.
Now, I’m not going to go on about the splendours of this stretch of coast -
the titchy roads leading to lost farming villages, the surge of excitement
as you burst through to a headland, that sort of thing. It would be as
tedious to read as it is exhilarating to travel.
So just take my word for it, make for Les Pieux and filter out to Flamanville,
Diélette and Biville. Beyond Beaumont, you’ll bump into the huge
nuclear-reprocessing plant, which is either (a) a planet-threatening
disgrace, or (b) a vital motor of the local economy. Make your choice and
drive on. The plant’s soon forgotten. Nature’s quite big enough around here
to swallow it up. And so to the Cap de la Hague and its culminating point,
the Nez de Jobourg. From cliffs rising 420ft above muscular seas, you may
contemplate the dramatic rightness of creation, the island of Alderney in
the middle distance - and lunch at the Auberge des Grottes (from £11.50),
the only building on the rocks.
Continue round, dropping into Goury (where the Cap flattens out into a flat
Cap) and along the Cotentin’s northern edge. If you’re a fan of the poet
Jacques Prévert, don’t miss his house in the almost overbucolic hamlet of
Omonville-la-Petite. Millet fans will find the artist’s birthplace just
outside Gréville-Hague equally rewarding.
Thus back to Cherbourg. Jump straight on a ferry or, I’ll bet, you’ll be
lapping this circuit at least once again.
Getting there: Brittany
Ferries has fast ferries to Cherbourg from Poole (3hr), and sailings
from Portsmouth (4hrs), from £140 return for a car and two passengers, for a
stay of up to five days. Irish
Ferries sails from Rosslare, from €378 for a car and two passengers.
Alternative ports include Caen, St Malo and Le Havre.
