The French hierarchy of roads is determined by who is in charge of their construction and maintenance. So if the communes (municipalities) are in charge of the routes communales, and the départements in charge of the routes départementales, the nation, that is, the French state, is in charge of the routes nationales.
The routes nationales (RN) form a national road network that predates autoroutes (highways/motorways). Contrary to the autoroutes (highways/motorways), there are no toll stations on the Nationales, making them a cheaper (if slower) alternative.
The RN 13 is one of the main Nationales starting out from Paris. It links Paris with the town of Cherbourg in the département Manche, as one of four Nationales between Paris and Normandy.
The Nationale 13 with the métro 1 running at its center, the Porte Maillot construction site and the Arc de Triomphe in the background.
On the stretch between Porte Maillot and La Défense business district, it accommodates up to 160,000 vehicles per day.
Say “cheese”! And now say “Camembert de Normandie”.
The Camembert de Normandie isn’t just any cheese. It’s a cheese with a history. First of all, not any camembert made in Normandy may call itself Camembert de Normandie. That’s an AOP label, Appellation d’origine protégée, or Protected Designation of Origin.
A real Camembert de Nornandie (AOP)
That means a Camembert de Normandie has to respect a number of criteria. First of all, obviously, is has to be made in Normandy, and even more specifically, in the départements of Calvados, Orne, Manche, or the western part of the Eure.
grazing Normandy cows
At least 50% of the milk has to come from Normandy cows (that’s a breed). The cows, the Normandy ones and the others, have be out in the pasture at least 6 months of the year and are allowed only specific feed when they can’t graze outside.
After that, it gets very technical in how the Camembert is produced. A crucial point to remember however is that Camembert de Normandie is made with unpasteurized milk and as such might be banned in certain countries. Also, it is generally recommended not to eat raw-milk products during pregnancy.
The finished Camembert has the shape of a cylinder of 10,5-11cm in diameter and weights a minimum of 250g. It is sold in a round wooden box made from poplar.
a Camembert cheese and its wooden box
If you buy a Camembert in a cardboard box, or one that says only “Camembert” or even “Camembert fabriqué en Normandie”, you are not buying the real thing, the one we’re talking about.
But I promised history, right? Well, here we go:
As legend has it, the Camembert de Normandie was invented by Marie Harel in 1791, and the production was continued by her daughter, whose husband presented it to Napoléon III who gave it his seal of approval.
Normandy cow statue in Vimoutiers (adjacent to Camembert), where Marie Harel died
In better documented history, these factors advanced the spread of Camembert:
the railway expansion which linked the small Normandy towns to Paris in less than 6 hours instead of several days as well as the above-mentioned wooden box, replacing the straw bed, which allowed for a better transport of this fragile cheese
the First World War during which Camembert became part of the soldiers’ rations – those who returned home brought the Camembert into every part of France
And the name? Check your map of Normandy. Marie Harel came from a tiny town in the Orne called – Camembert.
In the north of the département Ille-et-Vilaine, two rivers hold extraordinary powers of very different nature: the Rance and the Couesnon.
The Couesnon is a coastal river of just 100km length. Still it crosses three départements that coincidentally belong to three different regions. Its source is in Mayenne (53) which belongs to the Pays-de-la-Loire region. Then it runs through Ille-et-Vilaine but finishes in the Normandy département Manche (50) just west of the Mont Saint Michel.
As famous 19th-century French writer Chateaubriand put it, “Le Couesnon dans sa folie a mis le Mont en Normandie” – the foolish Couesnon put the Mont into Normandy. While the Couesnon does not officially constitute the limit between Brittany’s Ille-et-Vilaine department and the Norman Manche, it is true that the river despite its irregular course has always flown into the Mont Saint Michel Bay west of the Mont. Now that its banks are artificially consolidated, there is no longer any doubt about the affiliation of the Mont Saint Michel – it is located in Normandy, and no Breton protest will change that.
The Couesnon seen from the Mont Saint Michel – The Mont Saint Michel seen from the Couesnon
The Rance The Rance is another coastal river only a little longer than the Couesnon. Its source lies in a village in Cotes d’Armor and it flows into the Channel between Dinard and Saint Malo in Ille-et-Vilaine.
The extraordinary power of the Rance is quite literally power, as in electricity, and the Rance owes it to the high tides on this part of the coast, which are in fact the third-highest in the world.
The difference between high and low tide is especially visible on the beach of Saint Malo
In the 1960s, France harnessed the power of the tides by building a tidal power station across the mouth of the Rance that remained for 45 years the largest tidal power station in the world. It has a peak output of 240MW, supplying 0,12% of the power demand of France.
The mouth of the Rance (red) and of the Couesnon (blue)
