Public Bus Services in Normandy

If you plan on using public transport to get around Normandy, bear in mind that rural areas are generally poorly served by buses, with most bus routes in Normandy running within and between the major towns.

Bus tickets are widely available from tobacconists and newsagents, usually located near the bus stops.

In most cases tickets for a single journey can be bought as you board the bus itself. Books of tickets (known as a “carnet”) as well as various daily, weekly and monthly passes can sometimes be bought on the bus, but some companies only sell these through shops or their own offices.

Bus services are organised by the individual County Council of each department in Lower (Calvados, Manche and Orne) and Upper Normandy (Seine Maritime and Eure), and there are also different bus operators for some major towns.

Calvados

Departmental transport is provided by the Bus Verts du Calvados.  Their site is in French only and gives information on Calvados bus routes, tickets, sales points etc.

Bus Verts offices:

• Caen: Place de la Gare, and at place Courtonne
• Bayeux: Place de la Gare
• Deauville: Place de la Gare
• Honfleur: Rue des Vases
• Lisieux: Place François Mitterrand

Tickets can be bought on the bus or at many Tabacs (tobacconists, they have a long red sign hanging outside known as a “carrot”) or Presse (newspaper) shops close to the bus stops.

The Bus Vert company operates rather complicated tarifs based on a zone system.  It can be simpler and cheaper to buy a pass.  Many ticket/pass choices are available, but the most useful for visitors is probably the “Carte Liberté” which gives unlimited use on all buses (except the Le Havre-Caen Express) for 1, 3 or 7 days.

A “Carte Liberté” bus pass costs :

1 day: 12,90 €
3 days: 25,16 €
7 days: 36,12 €

(as at Nov. 2009)

Le Havre Express is a special bus service between Caen and Le Havre, via Honfleur, taking 90 minutes. Caen – Honfleur costs 10.50 € single, Caen – Le Havre 14.50€.  The price also  includes use of the Twisto buses within Caen.

Caen Buses and Trams – Twisto

Twisto is a combined bus & tram service serving Caen. Their site is in French only and gives information on routes, tickets, sales points etc.

Single ticket costs 1.20€, a 1 day pass 3.55€, a family day pass (2-5 people) 5.25€.

Single tickets can be bought on the bus (exact money, please!) but not on board trams - for tram travel you must buy in advance from the machines in the stations.

You can buy passes from the Twisto boutiques in Caen, from machines in the tram stations, or from 80+ shops in Caen.

• Boutique Twisto : Château, 15 rue de Geôle, 14000 Caen
• Boutique Twisto : Théâtre, Boulevard Maréchal Leclerc, Caen.
  These are open Monday to Friday 07:15-18:30 and Saturday 10:00-16:45
  

Manche

Manéo supplies the bus services throughout the Manche department. Tickets for single journeys are 2.20€ and can be bought from the driver on the bus.  Books of 12 discount tickets (22€) and monthly passes (40€) are also sold on board.

Cherbourg

Zéphir Bus serves most of the Cherbourg area. Their site is in French only and gives information on routes, tickets, sales points etc. Also operates a limited night service.

Tickets for a single journey (1.10€), books of tickets or a one day unlimited pass for 2.80€ can be bought from 30+ tabacs (and a few other shops) near bus stops.

Orne

Public transport is managed by Conseil Général as “Le réseau Cap Orne“.

Tickets are bought as you get on the bus, at a flat price of 2€ regardless of journey length.

A guide to the Cap Orne bus service can be downloaded from the site in pdf format.

Eure and Seine Maritime

Véolia provides the bus services in these two departments.  Their site is in French only and gives information on routes, tickets, sales points etc.

Rouen

TCAR & Metrobus: Bus and metro serving the Rouen area. Tickets can be bought on the bus or at these points:

• Agence Métrobus at the train station,
• the Espace Métrobus at 9 rue Jeanne d’Arc,
• Métrobus shop at Rouen town hall, Hotel de Ville at 69 rue de la République.

A book of 10 tickets is available at a reduced rate, as well as monthly passes.

Camembert, Normandy

Camembert cheese is named after a small village in the Orne department of Lower Normandy, under an hour north from where we live (near Alençon). It’s a cheese of many talents: I like it young, when the inside is creamy yet crumbly, while others like it when it is really mature – what I call a runny, smelly mess. Personal choice!

Young, fresh camembert is quite mild, but as it ripens it becomes softer and more strongly flavoured.  Camembert is used in lots of recipes, but its distinctive flavour and texture gets lost in heating.  I prefer eating it in its natural state with fresh bread, when it MUST be served at room temperature to get the full flavour.  I think it is also best served with cider rather than with wine.

The best camembert is made from untreated milk and produced in the traditional way including hand-ladling into moulds – these top-quality cheeses bear the AOC Camembert label.

Other famous cheeses in the immediate environs include Livarot, Pont l’Evêque and Neufchâtel.  I confess that “Cœur de Neufchâtel”, the heart-shaped cheese, is my favourite of all of these, even if Camembert is better known.

Legend has it that Camembert cheese was invented by accident in 1791, and the story involves the French Revolution, a priest on the run and a lady farmer.

The Legend of Camembert Cheese

During the French Revolution (which began in 1789), all Catholic priests were required to swear allegiance to the new republic under pain of execution orexile. Rather than take any of these choices, some priests took refuge in the countryside.

In October 1791, the Abbé Charles-Jean Bonvoust sought refuge with Marie Harel at her manor farm, Beaumoncel near Camembert – Marie was born and grew up in Camembert.  The Abbé came from the Brie, a cheese-making region near Paris. As thanks for the shelter she offered him, he gave to Marie the “secret” of making Brie-style cheese.  However, Marie altered the recipe slightly, giving rise to a quite different type of cheese.

A nice story, but Camembert and the surrounding Auge region were already famous for their cheese well before Marie Harel was ever born. In 1569, Brugerin de Champier in his De Re Ciberia referred to “augeron cheeses”, as did Charles Estienne, another writer, in 1554. Thomas Corneille (brother of Pierre Corneille, author of Le Cid) also spoke in 1708 of “the cheeses of … Camembert” in his treatise on geography.

During the 19th century, thanks to the growth of the rail-road and the use of the now traditional individual, round wooden boxes to protect the cheeses from damage, Camembert conquered the markets of Paris and France and its fame has since spread world-wide.

Visiting Camembert

President Farm

The village is very picturesque and worth a  visit.  A trip there can be combined with a visit to the larger, nearby town of Vimoutiers and/or the wonderful Château de Vendeuvre which is not far away. In Camembert:

• The President Farm : find out how Camembert is made.
• Maison de Camembert (House of Camembert) : round and white, the building looks like a half-open box of Camembert! Used as a display centre in summer.
• Manoir de Beaumoncel : This old manor-house was the home of Marie Harel, the lady cheese-maker of legend
• La Héronnière Farm - Fromagerie Durand : the last dairy farm in the actual village of Camembert producing true A.O.C. camembert cheese from raw milk, hand moulded with a ladle in the traditional way.

The manufacturing process

This video is adapted from the site www.fromageriegillot.fr – one of the top manufacturers of Camembert cheese, and a multiple prize-winner.

The traditional Camembert cheese making process takes 3 to 4 weeks.  Without going into detail, the main stages are:

1. curdling the milk with the addition of rennet and ferments
2. ladling the curds into individual moulds, from which Camembert takes its form
3. draining the excess moisture from the moulds, which can take a day
4. then the cheese is turned out and rubbed with salt on all surfaces, to develop the aroma of the Camembert and form the crust
5. maturing in the drying room takes an average of twelve days, turning the cheese every 48 hours
6. wrapping in waxed paper and packing into the traditional round, wooden containers
7. eating – the best bit (but I still prefer Cœur de Neufchâtel!)

Access to Camembert:

Camembert is 1 hour (50 miles or 80km) north of our Bed & Breakfast Accommodation in Lower Normandy

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Trip Advisor Review Policy

I have first-hand experience of how hard it is to get TripAdvisor to correct false and malicious reviews.

So I was interested to see an official statement of Trip Advisor policy on verifying reviews – it appears that even if the owner of a hotel etc. has documentary proof that a review is false, TripAdvisor will not take that into account.  Hard to believe?

Here’s the message you get if you challenge a review on the grounds that it is untrue:

How can you trust reviews when they take this attitude?

To which the aggrieved owner might well reply “If that’s your attitude, what’s the point?”.

Just what TripAdvisor hopes for, do you think?  Surely you can do better than that, TripAdvisor – come on, get serious about the reviews you publish and don’t take us all for mugs!

Alençon, Chocolate and Lace

Visit Normandy Guest Post at Velvet Escape

Polished pews at the back of the church … a velvety and voluptuous, sensuous and silky secret … a devilish delight with eyes closed and head tilted back in delectation … a wicked pleasure of self-indulgence …

Chocolat Glatigny, Alençon, Normandy

Chocolate Heaven in Normandy! Read more at VelvetEscape … http://velvetescape.com/

Point de Beauvais Embroidery at Bourg-le-Roi

Just 4km from our chambres d’hôtes is the tiny commune and village of Bourg-le-Roi, on the border of Normandy and the Pays de la Loire,  known for a particular form of incredibly delicate emroidery called “Point de Beauvais”.

History of Point de Beauvais Embroidery at Bourg le Roi

Henry II Plantagenet made the decision in 1169 to build a fortified town at Bourg-le-Roi in order to protect his interests in the region. This characterful little village – which never grew to be the major city it was intended to be – has kept some significant architectural traces from that time, with fortified ramparts of a kind unique in the Sarthe and rare in all of France.

History has it that Point de Beauvais embroidery came to France via Italy, having arrived there via the China trade routes in the late middle ages.

This form of “linked stitch” embroidery became enormously popular from the 17th century, probably reaching its greatest heights in the 18th and carrying on well into the 20th century. A workshop was founded at Bourg-le-Roi by Margaret Boulard in 1840, and at its peak it was employing up to 60 home needleworkers. The last commercial embroidery workshop at Bourg-le-Roi closed its doors in 1968.

Example of Point de Beauvais

The Point de Beauvais Museum at Bourg le Roi

Part of the brief of the Association Tourisme et Culture of Bourg-le-Roi is to preserve and promote the art of Point de Beauvais embroidery, which is part of the historical fabric (pardon the pun) of the community.

The Musée du Point de Beauvais counts among its exhibits a 12m long embroidered frieze tracing the history of the commune of Bourg le Roi between 50BC and 1450AD, examples of embroidered ecclésiastial vestments, wall hangings, tablecloths and items of clothing decorated with Point de Beauvais needlework.  There is also a video to show the technique, and practical demonstrations each weekend in season.

One weekend each May the association and the Museé du Point de Beauvais organise an embroidery fair, featuring articles for sale and demonstrations of many types of needlework. We’ve been to this and can vouch that it is extremely popular and well-attended by people from many departments of France.

The association also organises about forty embroidery courses each year, for a maximum of 3 people each, open to novices and experienced neddleworkers alike. These take place in the museum itself.

Yvette Bertaux, one of the former workers at the commercial embroidery workshops of de Bourg-le-Roi, is one of the teachers. In an interview with a regional paper she explained, “I made my first few stitches in 1953, a beginner just like the people I teach today; it takes a great dexterity of hand and you have to persevere to go through three or four practical courses to learn the basics”.

Technique

Point de Beauvais embroidery, unlike some other forms such as Luneville, is worked with the right side of the workpiece uppermost. The pattern is traced onto paper, which is pierced all along the tracing lines with a needle; then ink is stencilled through the holes onto the cloth, which is stitched and held onto a workframe. The thread is worked from beneath the cloth using a very fine crochet hook, resembling a regular needle, to push and pull the thread, forming interlocking loops on the top surface and making a real “chain stitch”.

The best examples of the work can resemble paintings, since the Point de Beauvais technique allows many colours to be worked and combined, as finely as the embroiderer wishes, and the stitches can be very tightly worked together.

Museum

The Museum

76 rue du point de Beauvais
72610 Bourg-le-Roi
Tel : 02.33.26.80.69

Open from 15h to 18h30

• July and August: Wednesday and Sunday
• June and September: weekends

Point de Beauvais Courses

Contact Colette Mezenge, President of the Association Tourisme et Culture of Bourg-le-Roi
Tel : 02.33.82.70.72.

Three experienced embroiderers run the actual courses: Yvette Bertaux, Ginette Besnard and Lucienne Mondion. All necessary work materials and tools are provided.

Each 9 hour course takes place over a day and a half and costs 95€

Directions

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