Our Blog - Normandy 2023 - Barfleur, France

Barfleur is another Plus Beau Village in France, overlooking the English Channel on the northeastern corner of the Cotentin peninsula. The town is cute enough although there isn't all that much to see. I made sure I planned a visit to the town at lunchtime, since they are famous for their "Mussels of Barfleur". The vast majority of mussels on sale these days in France come from mussel farms. However, there are still natural mussel banks in the waters off the eastern side of the Cotentin Peninsula, and these are the mussels of Barfleur. While you can have them "à la marinière" in a classic shallot and white wine sauce, we opted for to try them with cream, since we are in Normandy which is famous for their cream!

The town itself is quite small, just over 500 people, but it was fairly busy the day we were there. The town has retained few buildings dating from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and it was not really damaged in WWII. It was occupied by the Germans and when the allied forces approached following the D-Day invasion, the German commander evacuated the city to ensure that it would not be damaged (supposedly he liked the city a lot). A bit of trivia, Paul Signac (one of the creators of pointillism) lived here a few years before he died and did a painting in 1931 of the harbor of Barfleur, which I found at a wiki page.

A few general pictures of the town, which has lots of old stone houses with white shutters. The restaurant, Cafe de France, is where we ate our mussels.

The port is quite busy, and you can see the large fishing boats along the dock on the right-hand side of the picture.

Looking across the bay, you can see the lighthouse at Gatteville-le-Phare.

Really the only historical site in the town is the Saint-Nicholas Church, which was built in the 17th century. Like many churches in Normandy, it looks very sturdy and plain on the outside.

The inside was quite interesting. The main altar has lots of statues and the walls and ceiling are colorfully painted.

Here you can see another part of the ceiling is in wood and is in the shape of a boat (upside-down). The painted semi-circle with the cross above it .. I'm not exactly sure what this is, but I have seen it now in 3 or 4 different churches on this trip alone. I would guess it is something specific to Normandy, but I have no idea yet what it is.

And now the stained-glass windows. There are 12 stained-glass windows that were done in 1892 by a workshop in Chartres.

This last one is a bit different. Located in the north transept, it shows Sainte-Marie-Madeleine-Postel dressed as a nun on clouds, sending her blessing to the port of Barfleur and some small boats. She was born in Barfleur in 1756 and died at the age of 90. She was canonized in 1925. At the bottom is an inscription reading "In memory of the Liberation, June 21, 1944, Barfleur grateful". It was made in 1945.