Cherbourg Promenades en Mer

L'Adele Bateau
(Taken from the tour website)

French Flag flying on the Boat!

Forts around the Harbour

View of part of the forts

On my first day here (Friday 29th August), Fran took me on a boat tour with the children. It was about 20 minutes to the Harbour so we left at 3pm to get the 3:30pm boat tour.

You can embark on the boat from either the 'Pont Tournant' - the bridge at the harbour near to the shopping centre, or la Cité de la Mer. The harbour is much closer so we got it from there (the first boarding place) and then the ferry swings round to the Cité de la Mer. Fran was really glad we got it from the Harbour as to board from Cité de la Mer you had to climb down some precarious looking stone steps, and with a baby and a 3yo, not the safest!

It was very interesting and went all around the harbour, lasting around an hour. It was guided and they gave us lots of interesting information about Cherbourg and the harbour, well, at least I think they did... it was all in French! (Their website is in English though oddly enough www.hagueapart.com)

One of the forts in ruins
"Probably the Germans", says Fran.

The boat, called 'l'Adéle', went right up to the walls and forts which are all around the Cherbourg Harbour. These were built towards the end of the Napoleonic War, designed to keep the British out, but the French then ironically invited Queen Victoria to come and open them at a grand ceremony!

We saw lots of marker buoys which Marc got very excited by (probably because he could easily spot them and told us about them every time he saw one!) and also saw lots of Ferries going to and from Rosslare, Poole and Portsmouth.

We went past the Cité de la Mer (the Aquarium and Sea Museum) which apparently had/has an exhibition all about the Titanic. Cherbourg was (one of) the last places for the Titanic to stop and they're rather proud of that fact.

It was a pretty bumpy ride. Marc kept wanting to go and sit outside, but after the first 15 minutes, the seats had all been splashed and were too wet to sit outside. We had sat inside to begin with (Marc insisted) so hadn't gotten wet like a lot of other people, but this meant that we didn't really have a good view. He also wanted to run around a lot, which wasn't the best idea given how bumpy the ride was... We're lucky he didn't fall over!

Cherbourg harbour is actually quite big. There's a couple of beaches and the Ferry port, as well as the boat docking bit too.

It was quite a good boat trip all in all. Perhaps I'll do it again when it starts again in April (they're closed from October - March) and hopefully I'll be able to understand a bit more of the tour then!

View of Cherbourg from Sea!