Beside the Seaside

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In Which I Reach The Wild West

August 11, 2007 by Mike

Cherbourg

Route: Hermanville - Bayeux - Carentan - Ste Marie-du-Mont - St Vaast - Barfleur - Cherbourg

There's no such thing as a free lunch and there's no such thing as a quick ride. (Not when it's me on the bike anyway. I get overtaken by tractors.)

And so it is that my decision to nip inland for the first stretch today, having negotiated the coast road yesterday, sort of backfires. I miss the motorway and end up riding 40 miles on small country lanes. I say 'sort of' backfires because these small country lanes turn out to be some of the most beautiful I've seen on the trip. Windy and uppy-downy, almost deserted save the occasional speeding tractor, strung between tiny villages, all Normandy stone and hidden corners, through golden fields being harvested as I ride past and dappled woods full of mystery and antiquity. And all freshly tarmac'ed, making the ride pure pleasure.

The sea is starting to look less like the Channel and more like the Atlantic

Following the coast again, I turn north into the Carentan peninsula. That's Utah Beach on the right, the most westerly of the D-Day beaches and seemingly a world away from the rest. No wonder they named it Utah.

And at that exact moment -- 16 minutes to midday -- I stopped to record the time -- the sun came out for the first time today. It must have been waiting for me to get back to the coast.

I noticed a theme developing as I rode through the picturesque little towns of the peninsula, the northern half of the region known as La Manche. (Not to be confused with the English Channel, which is also called La Manche, but which offers less attractive options for the motorcyclist.)

I pass through towns which have been flagged in advance as being particularly attractive only to be struck forcibly that the small towns beyond them are much more beautiful. Thus St Vaast isn't a patch on Reville, and Barfleur, while pretty enough, is very much the ugly sister to Gatteville-le-Phare, just a couple of miles down the road. The beauty isn't just in the buildings, the setting or the landscape. It's the ambience, the calm, the -- I get it, all of a sudden -- it's the absence of tourists. Everyone else has read he guidebooks and stuck to the famous spots. The locals are keeping the most desirable places to themselves. Rumbled!

Further on, as I approach Cherbourg, the coast road rises and rises until I find myself riding the crest and sides of real cliffs. Suddenly I'm high over the sea looking down past crash barriers -- the first I've seen since northern Norway and a sign that the geology of the trip is starting to change. Holland - you seem an awfully long way away.

There's a museum in Cherbourg called Cite de la Mer -- the City Of The Sea, which likes to think it's huge. Signs inform me that a wander round will take 3-4 hours. I get through in just over an hour. In fairness I didn't stop at every exhibit to "Clicquez ici" on each screen or watch every loop of video; I didn't pretend to steer a submarine via a computer keyboard or read (in French and halting English) descriptions of key moments in the history of French deep sea diving. I didn't feel the need and besides, every keyboard and mouse was taken by eager hands young and old. The other visitors to the Museum were studious to the point where I wondered if they were actually exhibits themselves -- that this was actually a museum about museums, where I could see and watch museum visitors in their natural habitat, close up and 'au naturel'.

I couldn't believe the unwavering interest of an entire family, granny, parents and three tyke-ish boys, in some frankly pretty dull panels about fishing quotas. I tried pinching a couple of them and it turned out they were actually human, and not the pinchable type either.

Back on the bike and, on the advice of the local tourist office, I kept going into the 'Wild West' -- also known as La Hague -- the farther reaches of the Carentan peninsula. Here the landscape changes again, bleak and barren, fields corralled by rocky walls where cows chewed morosely. A huge nuclear waste treatment plant dominates the plateau. Is it just me or have the French stuck it out here because the prevailing winds would blow any nastiness north to England?

The villages are no less picturesque, though. They just don't have campsites, and certainly not enough B&Bs to go round. There are others looking for a bed too, and I'm soon in competition with, amongst others, a young French couple in a VW van. On the bike, I'm a little faster going from one address to the next, but to no avail. Every room is full.

I retreat to Cherbourg -- 20 minutes by main road, instead of 90 via the coast! -- where the house red flows freely and I manage to watch The Simpson's Movie in French *and* get some of the jokes.

Beside the Seaside

In Which I Reach The Wild West

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