The quintessential image of Normandy
is of a lush, pastoral region of apple
orchards and contented cows, cider and
pungent cheese - but the region also
spans the windswept beaches of the
Cotentin and the wooded banks of the
Seine valley.
Highlights include the great abbey
churches of Caen, the mighty island of
Mont-St-Michel and Monet's garden
at Giverny.
Landscape Normandy gets its name
from the Viking Norsemen who sailed up
the river Seine in the 9th century.
As the pillagers turned into settlers,
they made their capital at Rouen - today
a cultured cathedral city that commands
the east of the region.
Here the Seine meanders seaward past the
ancient abbeys at Jumièges and
St-Wandrille to a coast that became
an open-air studio for Impressionist
painters during the mid and late 19th
century.
North of Rouen are the chalky cliffs of
the Côte d'Albatre. The mood
softens at the port of Honfleur and the
elegant resorts of the Côte Fleurie
to the West.
Inland lies the Pays d'Auge, with
its half-timbered manor houses and
patch-eyed cows.
The western half of Normandy is
predominantly rural, a bocage
countryside of small, high-hedged fields
with windbreaks composed of beech trees.
The modern city of Caen is worth
visiting for its two great 11th-century
abbey churches built by William the
Conqueror and his queen, Matilda.
Close by in Bayeux, the story of
Willian's invasion of England is told in
detail by the town's famous tapestry.
Memory of another invasion, the D-Day
landings of 1944, still linger along the
Côte de Nacre and the Cotentin
peninsula.
Thousands of Allied troops poured ashore
on to these magnificent beaches in the
closing stages of World War II.
The Cotentin peninsula is capped
by the port of Cherbourg, still a
strategic naval base.
At its western foot stands one of
France's greatest attractions: the
monastery island of Mont-St-Michel.As with all of France the
local currency is the Euro. Whether
renting property to move or
holiday here, more information about
Normandy can be found
here.
Alsace |
Aquitaine |
Auvergne |
Brittany |
Burgundy |
Center |
Champagne-Ardenne |
Corsica |
Franche-comte
Languedoc-Roussillon |
Limousin |
Lorraine |
Lower-Normandy |
Midi-Pyrenees |
North-Calais |
Paris-Isle-of-France
Pays-de-la-Loire |
Picardy |
Poitou-Charentes |
Provence-Alpes-Azur |
Rhone-Alps |
Upper-Normandy |