Above: Eight missile hatches on each side visible.
Chores and DIY
It was a morning of chores, starting with the laundry before calling into a great hardware superstore called Leroy Merlin on the way to Valognes for more DIY.
Today I started masking the attic windows for painting. It was all good until I realised E was doing it at three times the pace, but he had a slight advantage with a pair of scissors.
I was treated to lunch at nearby L’Indochine before we headed to Cherbourg’s waterfront where I was dropped off around 1500 while E attended to errands and a little work.
Cite de la Mer – Le Redoutable
On the waterfront, I visited Cite de la Mer a museum complex of sorts which housed Le Redoutable nuclear submarine, had some historical information on the Titanic and a marine life area with an aquarium.
Le Redoutable is huge at 128m with 135 crew. It was built in Cherbourg and now sits in a dry dock available for visits. It has 16 missiles (8 hatches per side in the photo below) each one 50x the power of the Hiroshima one. It is also equipped with four torpedo tubes. It is only a few months younger than me, launched in March 1967
A computer-aided educational area nearby explained how specialised submarine crew (“golden ears”) learn to hear and recognise sounds underwater and chart them.
Even though I’m not normally into military and warfare exhibits, I enjoyed the inside tour of the sub tremendously, thanks in part to the excellent audio guide.
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- Cite de la Mer main hall.
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- Le Redoutable.
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- Missile #16 on Le Redoutable.
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- Eight missile hatches on each side visible.
Cite de la Mer – Titanic
As I wasn’t sure when E would come back for me, I prioritised my visit with the interior of the submarine did a quick superficial visit of the remaining areas then repeating them to get additional depth when time allowed.
Cite de la Mer has a large Titanic exhibition area due to the city’s connection to the infamous vessel.
It is generally known that the Titanic sailed from Southampton to New York on its fateful journey. But it is not well known that it called into Cherbourg on 10 April 1912 and then Queenstown in Ireland before hitting the iceberg on 14 April 1912.
Migrants were big business back then and on transatlantic journeys, many migrants from Europe, Middle East and Asia often join here in Cherbourg. And Irish migrants would join in Ireland.
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- The Titanic.
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- Cherbourg port from outside the Titanic exhibit.
Cite de la Mer – Marine life
I didn’t have much interest in the details of the marine life and the aquarium having visited much bigger ones lately. The one they had was probably smaller than the one at Jeddah airport!
I always like the iridescent jellyfish tank though.
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- Aquarium at Cite de la Mer.
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- Iridescent jellyfish.
Rest of the day
It was around 1800 when E collected me from Cite de la Mer. He had been stuck in traffic getting to me as a boat had gone through the area connected by the rotating bridge.
Heading back to Valognes for some painting of the attic windows, we got caught in more traffic.
After more than an hour of work, we returned to Cherbourg to have a late dinner at the Port Café. I finished dinner with a Normandy baked rice pudding called Teurgeoule. It was delicious with an apple compote which was non-traditional and E thought it ruined the dish.
It was around 2230 when we got back home, with remains of some sunlight. The Normandy summer nights are long indeed, especially when the weather is good.