Cherbourg-Octeville is a town and commune in Normandy, North-West France.
It was formed when the city of Cherbourg absorbed Octeville on February 28, 2000,
and was officially renamed Cherbourg-Octeville.
Cherbourg holds an arsenal of the French Navy.
Cherbourg is twinned with Poole in Dorset, England.
read full wikipedia reference about Cherbourg, France
• Arrival
And Information
• Dining
in Cherbourg
If the murky metropolis
of CHERBOURG is your port of arrival, it's best to head
straight out and on: despite some busy pedestrian streets and
lively bars, the town itself lacks anything of substantial interest,
and there are some much more appealing places within a very few
kilometres to either side. Napoléon inaugurated the transformation
of what had been a rather poor, but perfectly situated, natural
harbour into a major transatlantic port, by means of massive
artificial breakwaters. An equestrian statue commemorates his
boast that in Cherbourg he would "recreate the wonders of
Egypt", though there are as yet
no pyramids nearer than the Louvre.
If you are waiting for
a boat, the best way of filling time is to settle into a café
or restaurant or do some last-minute shopping. Don't, however,
leave your food shopping for the town. Unless you hit the Thursday
market , held around rue des Halles, your best bets for shopping
are the Auchan hypermarket at the junction of RN13 and N13, south
of town, or the Carrefour, on the southeast corner of the Bassin
du Commerce.
As for walking off lunch,
the only area that really encourages a ramble is over by the
Basilique de la Trinité and the former town beach , now
grassed over to form the "Plage Vert". Over to the
south, you could alternatively climb up to Roule Fort for a view
of the whole port. The fort itself contains a Musée de
la Libération (May-Sept daily 10am-6pm; rest of year Tues-Sun
9.30am-noon & 2-5.30pm), with the usual dry maps and diagrams
but plenty of contemporary newsreel - much of it, for once, in
English - commemorating the period in 1944 when Cherbourg was
briefly the busiest port in the world.
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