All towns have something they would like to forget. Valognes is not unusual in this, it was just a little prettier than most, for a while. Until June 1944 when liberator’s bombs obliterated it’s fickle heart. A glorious past In the 18th century this country town was fashionable. Here, more than 100 noble
Manche
All our posts from the Manche region.
WW2 history is disappearing from Néville-sur-Mer
Quietly crumbling into the sea, in amongst soft dunes isolated by marshland, is the Batterie Blankenese de Néville-sur-Mer. A few miles east of Cherbourg this is not a famous WW2 heritage site, but still a poignant reminder of when Normandy was occupied by an unwelcome enemy. Then Here, from 1943 the Kreigsmarine,
Cherbourg, torpedoes and a Tsar in the playground
Unsettling times The first few years of the new century were not comfortable for heads of state in Europe. Everyone was looking hard at the newly unified German Empire. Now the many Germanic principalities have stopped squabbling between themselves they are putting a lot of energy into building rather more military power than
