My Video
Perche’s Park
I’m in the Park… Amazing ! Clean air, trees, I’m loving ! What better way to visit the park? Than by horse!
Normandy is very famous for its horses and I meet some farmers that tell me all about their work and about horse’s life and characteristics.
I learn that there are also many competitions that are regularly organised in Southern Normandy and that the next international one will be in Deauville in 2014. It will be a great event ! I’m wondering if I could not arrange another trip to this region around that time…
I am thinking about my trip, I’ve almost forgotten about Mont Saint Michel when the farmer arrives with my last clue… It’s a ticket for Sao Paulo, for the Universal Exhibition that starts June 30th 2013. There is also a map to find the stand of Southern Normandy and on the map… There it is ! My Mont Saint Michel !
See you in Sao Paulo guys ! Help me to find Mont Saint Michel and play with our treasure hunting on our web site.
It Is Time To Eat Some Cheese!
I’ve decided to go to the Camembert museum. I’m sure to find Mont Saint Michel this time. I start visiting the museum, it is so interesting!
Le Pays d’Auge is where the Camembert is born and it reflects Normandy’s generous image. It’s a dreamy and calm place, in the middle of the country. Everything is green and peaceful around me and there are cows !!! Yes, I feel like I am in the real Normandy.
Camembert is a true symbol of France and after visiting the museum I taste all the types of cheese and I’m ready to leave with a souvenir… There’s a device to print my image on a Camembert label! Cool! I want to do it!
I take my photo and… So strange… There’s not the usual writing “Camembert de Normandie”, but instead “Parc naturel regional du Perche”… A clue! Here we start again…
From Deauville To Caen!
The quest of Mont Saint Michel makes me hungry. How can I be in Normandy without tasting one or two local dishes. During my visit of Bayeux, I’ve heard Guillaume Le Conquérant was crazy about the “Tripes à la mode de Caen”… Why not, but I prefer taste a lamb from tidal marsh or maybe some “coquilles Saint Jacques”, a glass of cider, a piece of cheese and… well maybe I won’t be hungry any longer after all that. Normandy’s people find a solution to satiety, it’s called “le trou normand”, a little glass of “calva”, a liquor made with apples, and you’re hungry again! Cheers!
In a restaurant, I ask for their best camembert, the most famous cheese in the world. I open its wood box to smell its very particular fragrance and I find a little picture of the Mont Saint Michel. A clue again? May there’s something to find about my quest. I turn the box and read the address which is… Camembert of course!
Let’s go!
Deauville Landing Beaches
I continue my road to Deauville, the city where the Parisians like to spend their weekend still looking the Mont Saint Michel… I have already heart to talk about this city. It is a beautiful city? I don’t know but I am very exiting and in hurry to visit it. Since my arrival, I notice that is a very fancy place appreciated by foreign people too.
I’m in love with this city: the boards, the Casino, the golf, the lots of shops, the famous Ice Cream of Martine Lambert… I would like to stay some more days but I don’t want to forget my main objective : to find Mont Saint Michel. I told myself that I would come back for the American Film Festival on September: 100 films during 10 days…
The festival encourages exchanges between professionals and celebrates the American cinema story with a lot of respect and well-known ‘oldies’ films.
Gold Beach
I leave the cemetery still so touched… It has been a great emotion but I’m ready to live another strong moment going to Gold beach.
Under the command of general Eisenhower, allied naval forces landed on this beach on June 6th 1944. It has been a great moment for European history and several memorial museums have been created to commemorate the soldiers.
I’m on the beach thinking about this great history when, looking at the sea, I start again thinking about Mont Saint Michel… And there I see a reel, half hidden in the sand.
Another clue and the solution is: Deauville and its film festival!
Ready to go on the road again!
From Cherbourg To Bayeux!
Takes only 1 and a half hours to drive to Bayeux, I pass through the Regional Natural Park of Contentin and Du Bessin’s Marshes. The nature is so beautiful here, on my left, I can see the Atlantique ocean and start thinking about the Mont Saint Michel… Stay focus, Emily! Your quest must keep going on!
I arrive into the city of Bayeux and park in front of the museum of Bayeux tapestry, famous all around the world. I came especially for the most famous one representing the conquest of England by Guillaume le Conquérant. The tapestry is giant, 70m by 50m, it has been made with wool and linen during the XIth century. I dive into this great battle and think that Guillaume was really cute…
Continuing my visit a women asks me if I want to learn how to weave a tapestry… Am I that old? Well, we never know, it can be helpful! But I hope I won’t prick myself with the machine-woven, it was a bad experience for Sleepy Beauty. I won’t wait for 100 years…
After the museum, I visit the British military cemetery of Bayeux. About 4,000 soldiers of 11 different countries are buried there. This peaceful place is full of history, and I sit onto a bench, in front of the monument, when I see something sparkling on the floor. It’s a key ring with a golden helmet. It makes me tough of the Gold Beach, the first beach where the allies landed.
I think I found my next destination.
From Coutances To Cherbourg: Cherbourg’s City of Sea
I leave the Jazz Festival of Coutances direction « La Cité de la Mer » of Cherbourg. On the road, I keep the eye on the clear horizon… I hope to catch sight of the Mont Saint Michel. The sea is calm… and the sky is blue but I don’t see it and I am already in Cherbourg. I hope to see the site again, on another trip someday soon.
Fortunately, I take advantage of other discoveries each as beautiful as the other.
At the entrance, at the same place of the oldest Gare Maritime Transatlantique, a prestigious building Art Deco, « La Cité de la Mer » is facing to me… I get into this theme park; choosing to visit the oceanographic museum and the submarine.
I am very happy to be amongst the fishes and to see all the colours. But suddenly, something strange catches my eye, a peace of tapestry at the bottom of the aquarium. Then, I understand I have to continue my road to Bayeux…
Coutances Jazz Festival
Looking for Mont Saint Michel is not easy at all, I don’t know where to start… I start going to the North of the region. Driving along the coast, the sea is wonderful ! There are cliffs at the beginning and then the beach all along! I would like to stop and enjoy the view, but I must keep going! I really want to find Mont Saint Michel!
I stop at a gaz station to feel the tank and I meet a man that talks about this weird disparition story. A group says that I should go and have a look in Coutances because somebody has seen it over there.
I start driving again and get in Coutances and I find that there is a wonderful Jazz Festival. I decide to have a look because I think that I will be able to ask a lot of people there about my research.
I find out that they organize this festival every year and that it is very easy to get there sharing a car with somebody or by train with 10 euros round trip. It lasts one week and it’s full of people from all over the world! So cool!
I have fun but I’m too worried about my Mont Saint Michel, I cannot forget about it and relax… It’s awful. I stand there drinking my beer and listening to wonderful jazz music when I see… a photo of Mont Saint Michel… On further inspection of the photo, behind the photo… A clue: a feather of a seagull… The seaside!!!!!!!! No! Not the seaside… The “Cité de la mer”… It’s not far from here… Let’s go!
Where Is The Mont Saint Michel?
My alarm rings at sunrise, I didn’t find any sleep last night, I am so excited to start my trip to Mont Saint Michel, a mythic and incontrovertible monument of the Southern Normandy.
To go there, I drive through very little and empty roads with cows on the right side and… cows on the left side. I can’t wait to reach my final goal: the large bay which surrounds the monument, and to discover the magnificent view that the Mont Saint-Michel offers.
1 mile… cows, 2 miles… still cows, 3 miles… but where is the damn rock?! I park my car and run on the dyke. I stop with a group of tourists, I am in shock, the Mont Saint Michel is gone! All this for nothing! What a deception…
Who took it? Was it stolen? Did it sink? I start panicking, and promise myself that I’ll find it! I’ll scour Southern Normandy, for it!