Some people think this building is ugly.  Personally, I like the overlapping angles of the roof.  What do you think?  The workers from the Arsenal Militaire, where submarines are constructed, come here for lunch.

Jacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter.  His poems are often about life in Paris and life after the Second World War. They are widely taught in schools in France and frequently appear in French language textbooks throughout the world. 
One of Prévert's poems, "Les Feuilles mortes" (Autumn Leaves), was set to music and sung by prominent 20th century French vocalists including Yves Montand and Édith Piaf. 
Prévert wrote a number of screenplays for the film director Marcel Carné including Les Enfants du paradis (The Children of Paradise, 1945), often considered one of the greatest films of all time.  His home in Omonville-la-Petite which he bought in 1970 is now a museum and garden. 
After his death in 1977, he was buried in the local cemetery next to the Church of St-Martin.

The La Hague site is a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant of AREVA on the French Cotentin Peninsula that currently has nearly half of the world's light water reactor spent nuclear fuel reprocessing capacity. It has a capacity of about 1700 tons per year.  The La Hague site treats spent nuclear fuel from France, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands. It processed 1100 tons in 2008. The non-renewable waste is eventually sent back to the user nation, as established under international law. Recovered plutonium from spent fuel of French reactors is sent to Marcoule where MOX fuel (a mixture of uranium and plutonium) is fabricated.

L'église Notre-Dame de Querqueville is where I attend Mass on Sundays.  Sometimes it is held in another church in Urville-Nacqueville which isn't as old and has more of a modern flair to it than Notre-Dame.  Notice how from this vantage point at the top of the hill one can see all of Querqueville.  In the distance is the rade de Cherbourg and digue de Querqueville.  Beside the main church is the 12th century Chapelle Saint-Germaine.

Excavations have revealed that the present chapel was built on older foundations dating back as far as the 9^th century.  Querqueville’s name comes from the Nordic word “Kerk,” meaning “church” and that of “Villa” (Frankish name) meaning “field.”  It can be deduced from evidence of an ancient necropolis around the old foundations that on this site a religious building of sorts existed even as early as the 7^th or 8^th century. 



Inside the church of Notre-Dame above the altar is the image of the virgin rising to Heaven during the assumption.

The church is noted for it's beautiful stained glass windows that cast a rainbow of colors throughout the nave on sunny days. 

Here’s a photo of the Digue de Querqueville. It is part of the Rade de Cherbourg, the largest man-made harbor in the world.   Unfortunately, the forts around different places along the rade have been ravaged by time, sea water and man. 

I went on a trip last week on a boat to see the forts for myself.  Although they are in terrible condition, they are nonetheless impressive up close and personal.  I was watching Fort Boyard the other night and I thought, “wouldn’t it be awesome if they were to fix up one of the forts here in Cherbourg and make a television show?”  That would be awesome.

Some forts like this one on the L'île Pelée are simply spectacular and need repairs in order to make it worthy of a proper tourist destination--something Cherbourg simply lacks other than having La Cité de la Mer. 

For those of you who don't know what La Cité de la Mer looks like, here's another picture.  It used to serve as the old Transatlantic Railway Terminal.  Toward the end of World War II the Germans blew-up the building and its iconic 70m tall bell tower.  Now, mostly refurbished and saved from demolition it serves as a museum for all things dealing with the sea.  It has its own huge aquarium and is home to the first French nuclear submarine, Le Redoutable.