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St-LA?
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The city of
ST-LA?
, 60km south of Cherbourg and 36km southwest of Bayeux, is still known as the "Capital of the Ruins". Memorial sites are everywhere and what is new speaks as tellingly of the destruction as the ruins that have been preserved. In the main square, the gate of the old prison commemorates Resistance members executed by the Nazis, people deported east to the concentration camps and soldiers killed in action. When the bombardment of St-LA? was at its fiercest, the Germans refused to take any measures to protect the prisoners and the gate was all that survived. Samuel Beckett was here during and after the battle, working for the Irish Red Cross as interpreter, driver and provision-seeker - for such things as rat poison for the maternity hospitals. He said he took away with him a "time-honoured conception of humanity in ruins".
All the trees in the city are the same height, all planted to replace the battle's mutilated stumps. But the most visible - and brilliant - reconstruction is the CathA©drale de Notre-Dame . Its main body, with a strange southward-veering nave, has been conventionally repaired and rebuilt. But the shattered west front and the base of the collapsed north tower have been joined by a startling sheer wall of icy green stone that makes no attempt to mask the destruction. By way of contrast to such memories, a lighthouse-like 1950s folly spirals to nowhere on the main square. Should you feel the urge to climb its staircase, make your way into the brand-new and even more pointless labyrinth of glass at its feet, and pay the 10F/a?¬1.52 admission fee. More compelling, around behind the Mairie, is the MusA©e des Beaux-Arts (daily except Tues 10am-noon & 2-6pm; 10F/a?¬1.52), which is full of treasures: a Boudin sunset; a LurA§at tapestry of his dog, Nadir and the Pirates ; works by Corot, van Loo, Moreau; a LA©ger watercolour; a fine series of unfaded sixteenth-century Flemish tapestries on the lives of two peasants; and sad bombardment relics of the town.
St-LA?'s
tourist office
adjoins the "lighthouse" on the main square (mid-June to mid-Sept Mon-Sat 9am-6pm; rest of year Mon 2-6pm, Tues-Fri 9am-noon & 2-6pm, Sat 9am-6pm; tel 02.33.77.60.35,
www.mairie-saint-lo.fr
). Most of the
hotels
, restaurants and bars are across the river, near the
gare SNCF
. Overlooking the river from the brow of a ridge beside the station, the upmarket
logis HA?tel des Voyageurs
, 5-7 av BriovA?re (tel 02.33.05.08.63; 220-300F/a?¬34-46), is home to the
Tocqueville
A
restaurant
, which serves a delicious trout soufflA© on its 100F/a?¬15.24 menu. If you'd rather be up in town, try
La CremaillA?re
, 27 rue Belle (tel 02.33.57.14.68; 160-220F/a?¬24-34; closed Sat lunch & Sun). Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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France,
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