We finished up a relaxing week in Paris; enjoying the walks through the endless maze of gorgeous architecture and mood setting streets and bridges.
This is a video of our Paris trip and our initial landing into Cherbourg.
At the end of the week, we took the train through the Normandy countryside Cherbourg.
We finished up our Paris tour and then hit the Gare de Saint Lazare station, left Paris and headed to Cherbourg on a train enjoying a 3 hour ride down the River Siene and through the Normandy Countryside.
We landed in with our full load of baggage and headed to our hotel. We checked into a very sweet little 'Hotel Regence' in an ideal, central spot next to the first internal Cherbourg marina. A view of small sailing boats outside our hotel room window somehow made for a great place to watch all the French things goings-on, on the water....
10/10 for the Hotel Regence in downtown Cherbourg.
Did the Titanic ever complete its maiden voyage? Technically, yes. Before attempting its first Atlantic crossing from Southhampton, England to NY, New York, the Titanic sailed to Cherbourg, France to pick up additional passengers. Cherbourg has been a significant port for several hundred years and currently has four ports: a military port, a fishing port, a port of commerce and a marina. It is also the location of several boat builders including the company building our Chloe This would be our first chance to see Garcia's facility up close.
Cherbourg's Marina was a short walk away, headed up by a statue of the local Hero, Napolean, mounted on a horse - clearly dreaming about roaming the conquered English Countryside....
The design of the overall Cherbourg Port, or "Port Chantereyne" was as a historic staging point for both invasion and/or defense - from their old adversaries, the English. A huge, but attractive, sea wall now protects the bay from incoming Atlantic waves while a series of inner barriers now provides for a hierarchy of swell protection. The sea wall is called the 'de Querqueville' and was build over a number of attempts and years of stopping and starting - finally being finished by Napoleon at the turn of the last century.
Cherbourg, out on it's stubby peninsula is very close to Dunkirk. Cherbourg was the primary objective during the Normandy Landings of WW2.
Port Chantereyne now operates as a Vacation Spot, a French Submarine military base and also as a busy ferry port for Portsmouth, England; Pool England, Dublin, Ireland and Rosslare harbor, Ireland along with series to the local Channel Islands. For us, this made Cherbourg a great place to lay up and to serve as a convenient place to jump over to the UK for if we needed to have a nice Cup of Tea and a Real Breakfast.
After checking in we wandered off to the Marina to see if we could find some Garcias and Allures sailing boats. We found a whole bunch!!
