By Patricia Woeber
In Normandy the Cotentin Peninsula, the land that juts into the English Channel, is all about nature at its most dramatic: fast tides, historic bays, awesome cliffs, long beaches, vast estuaries, sweeping dunes and glorious marshes. Other attractions of this area, La Manche, are tiny ancient ports and villages, Cherbourg Harbor and landmark lighthouses.
Luckily, I was introduced to local photographer Jerome Houyvet, famous for his aerial views of this land, so he has seen it all. He told me that he accomplishes his work from a homemade parapente (paraglider), a puffy kitelike apparatus he calls a paramotor. Below the kite he attaches a motor and hangs a garden chair. After strapping himself into the chair, he actually runs to catch the wind, and up he goes.
Houyvet and I met in Barfleur, a port listed as one of the most beautiful villages in France on the northeastern coast of the peninsula of La Manche County. He enthusiastically described the lighthouses, prominently tall structures that resist the waves and currents of tremendous winter storms that caused historic shipwrecks. He has circled above the Gatteville (height 233 feet, the second-highest lighthouse in Europe) and the Auderville lighthouse.
He suggested that I visit Tatihou Island, a historical monument and UNESCO World Heritage Site. From St-Vaast-la-Hougue, a popular sailing port, I took a five-minute ferry ride and explored the island's two fortified towers designed by Louis XIV's (1638-1715) great military architect, the Marquis de Vauban.
Next I toured the Tatihou Maritime Museum's exhibits that describe the fishing practices of the prehistoric inhabitants of Cotentin and Mont-Saint-Michel Bay (on La Manche's west coast). For centuries fishermen wove branches and grasses into nets and set them upright in the beach sand in large V-shaped walls. Huge amounts of fish were brought in by the high tide and trapped when it receded. Remains of the logs that were used date from 4000 B.C. Photographs taken a century ago show 10-foot-high walls.
I returned to the island's dock to find that the sea was completely out, leaving racks of oyster beds covering the sandy ground. A few minutes later the same ferry came into sight. Now, however, it was on wheels, thanks to a hydraulic system that allows it to change from a boat to a bus.
Back on the mainland in St.-Vaast-la-Hougue I shopped in Maison Gosselin grocery, which sells high-quality fish products (fresh, bottled and canned) and a great choice of wines and calvados — the brandy made from apples that is a specialty of La Manche and Normandy. In the eighth century Charlemagne admired the area's apple-cider brews.
Nowadays the local seafood industry is a big deal with 435 acres producing oysters, and all told, Cotentin's west shore has more than 1,400 acres of oyster beds and 170 miles of mussel beds. The tides' extremely rapid flow through the racks gives the shellfish its exceptional flavor.
In Mont-Saint-Michel Bay mussels are farmed on 300,000 wooden stakes that produce 10,000 tons yearly, and they also farm oysters. Blainville-sur-Mer has shellfish beds, and from Pointe d'Agon hundreds of oyster beds stretch out to sea. The spit of sand at Pointe d'Agon is a must-visit to see the drama of the tides.
Eight vast marsh-estuaries that are unique to France feed the west coast and provide refuge for migrating birds. They look like mammoth carpets with swirling green patterns. The largest is Bay des Veys, an estuary that covers 9,800 acres of the Regional Marshlands Nature Park.
The area's tides are fearsome currents, and on the northwestern tip of Cotentin the Cap de la Hague's tides are among the fastest in the world. I hiked on the shoreline path, le Sentier des Douaniers (numbered GR 223), that dips and curves for 50 miles along scenic bays, on and around beaches to panoramic cliffs. La Manche has 220 miles of coastal paths. The scenes of the sea from here inspired Monet and other Impressionist painters.
On my final day, I stood on the shore of Mont-Saint-Michel Bay and stared across the vast gleaming expanse of wet sand stretching to the famous Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey in the distance. I was desperate to walk to the abbey, but I'd been told never go alone. The incoming tide moves at about 3 miles per hour and cannot be outrun. Hidden areas of quicksand are like cement around the legs.
The bay's rivers fill very fast, and. the sea can rise 30 to 46 feet between low and high tide. Since the eighth century the tides have defended the abbey from attack. Yet more than 7,000 sheep graze on the shore's salt meadows, and during migrations, 60,000 wading birds rest in this bay.
Cotentin is a place that thrills with the energy and splendor of the land and coasts. Houyvet sails on the winds while from the shores the tides gave me a natural high.
WHEN YOU GO
For information on La Manche: www.manche-tourism.com
Normandy region: www.normandy-tourism.fr
France: www.rendezvousenfrance.com
Jerme Houyvet's photographs and books: www.jeromehouyvet.com
Barfleur: www.ville-barfleur.fr or www.france-beautiful-villages.org/en/barfleur Ile de Tatihou and Saint-Vaast-le Hougue: www.normandie-tourisme.fr/pcu/ile-tatihou/saint-vaast-la-hougue/fiche
Accommodations: Port Racine, Hotel L'Erguillere: www.hotel-lerguillere.com, Le Clos Postel B&B, Regneville-sur-Mer: www.clospostel.com, La Ferme des Mares hotel: www.la-ferme-des-mares.com, Manoir de Coutainville B&B: www.manoir-de-coutainville.com
Patricia Woeber is a freelance writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
Barfleur, one of the most beautiful villages in France, is a port on the Cotentin Peninsula which juts into the English Channel on the northeastern coast of La Manche County in Normandy. At low tide boats are stranded on their keels. Photo courtesy of Jerome Houyvet.
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