The Companion Guide to Normandy

This is a second, thoroughly revised and updated edition of Nesta Roberts' essential guide to Normandy. For scenic variety, architectural riches and gastronomic pleasures, Normandy has few rivals among the regions of France. FromEu, in the north-east, to Mont Saint-Michel in the south-west, ths ancient duchy, whose history is so intimately linked woth our own, has exceptional interest for the traveller. The spectacular chalk cliffs of Etretat, the luminous skies over the channel coast and the rolling countryside behind it were the inspiration of painters such as Bonington, Boudin, Monet, Sisley and Pissarro. In the valleys of the Seine and the Risle the great Benedictine abbeys ofSaint-Wandrille and Bec were centres of that grand monastic civilisation which illuminated Europe during the tenth and eleventh centuries. Great ruined fortresses like Arques, Chateau Gaillard and Falaise stand as memorials of battles long ago while, on the beaches of Calvados, there is still the detritus of a nearer and more bitter war.