"The Trip Begins" Top 5 Page for this destination Cherbourg by bognerbabe

“How would you like to spend a week in a castle by the sea in Normandy?” This was the first sentence of an exciting Home Offer we received about a year ago. We could not believe that we had such an interesting exchange offer! Their castle for our Whistler ski home!! After a few emails back and forth the deal was done!! They came to ski in Canada at our Whistler home in March and we would look for ghosts in their castle Le Manoir de Dur Ecu in Normandy in July 2006!

A thrill to watch horses galloping on the beach!

After spending two weeks in a great exchange in Cheltenham touring the Cotwolds the day had arrived. for us to pack up and head for France.Four of us, including my sister and brother-inlaw left in a rented car and drove to Southampton where we caught a cheap flight to Cherbourg via FlyBe Airlines. It was a perfect postcard afternoon when we landed at the small but convenient airport. Our exchanger picked us up at the airport and drove us 20 km south along the coastl to his wonderful fairytale castle. Chatting all the way there, showing us many interesting sites we finally reached our destination. It was hard to believe that we would have this huge castle for a week all to ourselves; LE MANOIR DE DUR ECU. The owner of the castle took great price in showing us around his home which has been in his family for over 400 years. We had the castle for eight nights all to ourselves. Thank goodness there were four of us, as the castle had over 25 rooms, it was huge, and we found ourselves getting lost in it for the first couple of days.

Cherbourg Harbour

During the week at this location, we had fun exploring the castle, it’s tower and grounds, the fabulous white sandy beaches right across the road, Cherbourg’s harbour, beautiful beaches of the Cotentin peninsula, the towns of Sainte Mere Eglise ( yes and Red Buttons is still swinging from the church tower), Le Mont Saint Michel, Fougeres, Dinan, and Granville; and the D Day Beaches of Omaha, Juno, and Gold. All these were day trips with the exception of Le Mont Saint Michel as we stayed on Le Mont overnight. And we did not find any ghosts!!!But that's another story.