De captivants à banals, les articles et photographies de “The Baguette” sont une tentative de publier un journal de ma vie dans la Manche et de proposer un forum de discussion pour tout ce qui touche à la Normandie.
Continuing my story about Saturday afternoon in the Val de Saire, I also took the time to visit the 18th century Moulin de Marie Ravenel also called le Moulin de la Caudrairie in the village of Réthoville. The water mill is named after the poet Marie...
Tuesday, April 30, 2013 -- Porto, Portugal Well, I had a pretty nice day which started early with me leaving the hotel in Paris at 05h00 to catch my plane from CDG to Porto. Before leaving yesterday I took the metro to Châtelet in order to visit the Tour...
L'église Sainte-Vierge et Saint-Martin de Vrasville dates from the 12th or 13th century. Originally, it was a very small church (less than half of the current size) and lit by very small windows. During the Revolution, all of the liturgical furniture...
It’s been quite awhile since my last posting but I thought I would finally get around to posting the photos I took in weeks prior to walking the Camino de Santiago. Before my start in St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, I visited several places along the Atlantic coast...
Église Saint-Martin in Doville was built between 1840 and 1843 in the center of town and replaced the former parish church which was situated along the side of the Mont de Doville and called la chapelle Notre-Dame du Bon Secours. The interior of the church...
According to an ancient legend, the name of this remote village in the heart of the marais originates from the story of Dame Létiticie, a noble woman from Saint-Sauveur, who, having gotten lost in the forest during a hunting party believed she would die...
More of a palace than a château, Serrant has travelled through centuries without sustain any damage. The Renaissance château is built on the foundations of a medieval fortress. In 1749, the estate was sold by the last surviving descendant of the de Bautru...
The menhir just outside of the Basilique Notre-Dame de l’Épine (Our Lady of the Thorn) shows how Évron was once a site of great spiritual pilgrimage even before the introduction of Christianity. The first mention of a church in Évron occurs in the testament...
Had some more beautiful weather last week so I drove out to Courseulles-sur-Mer to visit the museum at Juno Beach. If you don't know what that is, it's the beach where the Canadians landed during D-Day. It's hard to believe that 70 years ago over 14,000...
There is so much information about this town online that it is overwhelming. I’ll try to be concise and too the point but if you are interested in all the facts just check out their link online. After a long day of hiking and visiting old churches, I...
Yesterday was such a beautiful day that I decided to go hiking. Looked online for a destination and decided on a short ramble in and around the small town of Fresville. My first stop was the Eglise Saint-Martin with its 12th century Romanesque nave. The...
Some members of my family (my aunt and uncle, cousin and mother and father) came to visit last month and we had some wonderful times visiting places in France, Belgium and Germany. Now that they are gone, I miss them very much. Here's a look at some of...
Huelgoat is popular with tourists and holidaymakers due to its impressive natural setting among the vestiges of the ancient forest that once covered inland Brittany. The village lies on a lake created between the 16th and 18th centuries to supply water...
Next stop on my drive through Brittany was Guimiliau. Guimiliau is named after its patron saint and founder, Saint Miliau, a good and pious prince, descendant of the ancient kings of Britain. Beheaded in 792 on the orders of his brother, he is invoked...
It is a pleasure to walk in the village of Le Bec-Hellouin admiring quiet and flowery streets with half-timbered houses. The peaceful atmosphere, terraces and small squares are deserving of a short stroll…certainly, the walking tour is pretty fast and...
From one castle to the next... Les Andelys lies in one of the loveliest settings along the Seine and is dominated by the impressive ruins of Château-Gaillard which overlooks the valley. Carefully following the walking tour map from the tourist office,...
In the 12th century, Marie de France, one of the earliest of women writers tells the touching legend of Caliste and Raoul the two lovers from where la cote des deux-amants gets its name. It seems that the King of Pitres did not want to give away his daughter...
I went to the town of Pontivy over the weekend with some friends of mine. We had such a wonderful time visiting the town as well as the Breton countryside. Pontivy is the old capital of the Rohan family and gets its name from a 7th century monk named...
There are so many wonderful places to visit in our region that do not appear in most guidebooks. However, with a little bit of research, one can find the most extraordinary of buildings in some of the smallest of towns. Such is the case with Montfarville....
Bagnères-de-Luchon is a lively spa town lying in a beautiful setting amidst the Pyrénées. It is the busiest and most fashionable cure resort in the region, and also a tourist and winter sports center with a wide choice of ski runs, climbs and excursions....
Villandry was one of the last great Renaissance châteaux to be built on the Loire; it has unusual features for Touraine, like rectangular pavilions (instead of round towers) as well as the layout of the esplanade and its moat. Villandry’s international...
It's been a long time since my last post. The weather here hasn't been very nice with all the wind and rain, it is difficult to get out and do anything let alone take any photos. Things are going well for me and I am still very happy in France. Despite...
During the Allied invasion of Normandy, the United States Army Graves Registration Service established two large cemeteries with fallen American and German soldiers near the village La Cambe, about eight kilometers east of Isigny-sur-Mer. After 1945,...
The surrounding district of Saint-Jean in Caen was badly bombed during World War II. Most of l'église Saint-Jean had to be rebuilt but, fortunately, it was possible to restore it. The fine Flamboyant Gothic building was begun in the 14th century, and...
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...
