normandy

BETWEEN SEA AND GROUND
Close to Ile-de-France, Normandy seems like a strong ground of contrasts. Endowed with a coastline which stretches on the way, but also with a rich soil of traditions, it recomposes with satiety in front of the eyes of the visitor who will find there decency, warmth, and authenticity.
To be convinced, it is enough to drive your car in direction of the coast! Little time afterwards on the traces of Marcel Proust, who had acquired his practices at the Grand Hotel of Cabourg, you already forgot your daily concern, swept by a soft breeze which from Dieppe to Cherbourg, revives the memory of the battle of freedom!. The cliffs of Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue still remember it; they inspired Jean-François Millet. Before sounding the Angelus, the painter paid homage to generations of peasants who worked a Norman ground having fun with the atmospheres and the colors. Burning and impassioned like the heroin of Alexandre Dumas, the Lady with camellias of Nonant-le-Pin; dark and mysterious, like the manors of the moor of Lessay that are dear to Jules Barbey d' Aurevilly; proud and rich of history, like the manors of the Perche; the country of Mirbeau Octave; green and forest like this Norman Switzerland become the paradise of the lovers of sport and nature; shone upon and merry like its smart stalking on the boards of Deauville by Kees Van Dongen; attractive and remote as this single decoration of cliffs of Etretat which impressed Gustave Courbet and George Braque.
The legend affirms that vis-a-vis to the sea, the painter spoke to it as a brother. But at the thin bottom of the grove, privileged bonds also weave themselves between the man and the horse, that is his best companion says one. After having exported the Percheron to America, the Norman could also give his letters of nobility to the horse by creating champions in the Stud farm of Saint Lô, and within the prestigious setting of the Stud farm of Pin.
Enriched by thousand years of history, the Norman remains today still very attached to his ground. For this reason, more than other perhaps, Gustave Flaubert liked his Normandy. In his turn, Camille Pissarro crunched with full teeth the lights of the city, while rediscovering the richness of the inheritance of Normandy. An immutable show of stones which struck also the imagination of Claude Monet when the Master of Giverny got involved in his famous series of the cathedrals of Rouen, a few years after having immortalized a basin of Havre with a raising sun, a canvas which gave its name to impressionism. Whether they are maritime or terrestrial, that they praise the epic of their glorious adventurers navigators or the simplicity of a stroll in family rocked by the zenith, the five Norman departments (Eure, Seine Maritime, Calvados, Orne, and Manche) knew how to remain themselves. A thousand-year-old authenticity which appears in the glance of a fisherman turned towards Newfoundland, or that of a farmer from the fertile plateaus of Neubourg in Eure, harvesting his wheat field at the height of the summer. A multiple and sincere Normandy which awaits you with open arms!