Thursday, 18 August 2011

20 days in a van : Part 3 : Days 6-8 (2-4 August)

We arrived in Le Havre early on day 6 and headed south along the coast


But first we had to cross the Seine by travelling over the Pont de Normandie - a cable-stayed road bridge that spans the river Seine linking Le Havre to Honfleur in Normandy. Its total length is 2,143.21 metres (7,032 ft) – 856 metres (2,808 ft) between the two piers.



The bridge was designed by Michel Virlogeux. The architects were François Doyelle and Charles Lavigne. Construction began in 1988 and lasted 7 years. The bridge opened on 20 January 1995. At that time it was both the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world, and had the record for the longest distance between piers for any cable-stayed bridge. It was more than 250 m longer between piers than the previous record. This record was lost in 1999 to the Tatara Bridge in Japan.


We spent our first night in Normandy in Villers-sur-Mer



Villers-sur-Mer is known for the large topiary dinosaurs facing the sea from the garden of the office of tourism. In certain years, a baby dinosaur is added to the garden. It is the starting point of the Vaches Noires cliffs - a site where many fossils have been discovered


On day 7 we moved a few miles along the coast to Houlgate



We stayed here a couple of nights before moving on to the D-Day Landing beaches


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