La Normandie

Normandy is divided into five administrative departments: Calvados, Eure, Manche,

Orne, and Seine-Maritime. It covers 30,627 square kilometres comprising roughly 5% of the
territory of metropolitan France. Its population of 3,322,757 accounts for around 5% of the
population of France. The inhabitants of Normandy are known as Normans, and the region is
the historic homeland of the Norman language. The neighboring regions are Hauts-de-France
and Ile-de-France to the east, Centre-Val de Loire to the southeast, Pays de la Loire to the
south, and Brittany to the southwest. The capital is Rouen.
Celts invaded Normandy in successive waves from the
4th to the 3rd century BC. When Julius Caesar invaded Gaul,
there were nine different Celtic tribes living in Normandy. The
Romanisation of Normandy was achieved by the usual
methods: Roman roads and a policy of urbanisation.
Classicists have knowledge of many Gallo-Roman villas in
Normandy.
In the late 3rd century, barbarian raids devastated
Normandy. Coastal settlements were raided by Saxon pirates. Christianity also began to enter
the area during this period. In 406, Germanic tribes began invading from the east, while the
Saxons subjugated the Norman coast. As early as 487, the area between the River Somme and
the River Loire came under the control of the Frankish lord Clovis. Vikings started to raid the
Seine valley during the middle of the 9th century. As early as 841, a Viking fleet appeared at the
mouth of the Seine, the principal route by which they entered the kingdom. After attacking and
destroying monasteries, including one at Jumièges, they took advantage of the power vacuum
created by the disintegration of Charlemagne's empire to take northern France. The
descendants of Rollo and his followers adopted the local Gallo-Romance language and
intermarried with the area's native Gallo-Roman inhabitants. They became the Normans – a
Norman French-speaking mixture of Norsemen and indigenous Franks, Celts and Romans.

Rollo's descendant William became king of England in 1066 after defeating Harold
Godwinson, the last of the Anglo-Saxon kings, at the Battle of Hastings, while retaining the
fiefdom of Normandy for himself and his descendants.
Les attractions touristiques comprennent: Les falaises d'Étretat, les vallées de la côte
d'Albâtre, Le Mont-Saint-Michel, Rouen, Honfleur et la Côte Fleurie, Deauville et Trouville, Le
Pays d'Auge, Le Havre, Les
débarquements du Débarquement, la tapisserie et la cathédrale de Bayeux, la maison de
Monet à Giverny, Granville et les îles Chausey, le parc naturel régional du Perche, Caen,
Cherbourg.

Parts of Normandy consist of rolling countryside typified by pasture for dairy cattle and
apple orchards. A wide range of dairy products are produced and exported. Norman cheeses
include Camembert, Livarot, Pont l'Évêque, Brillat-Savarin, Neufchâtel, Petit Suisse and Boursin.
Normandy butter and Normandy cream are lavishly used in gastronomic specialties.
Turbot and oysters from the Cotentin Peninsula are major delicacies throughout France.
Normandy is the chief oyster-cultivating, scallop-exporting, and mussel-raising region in France.
Normandy dishes include duckling à la rouennaise, sautéed chicken yvetois, and goose
en daube. Rabbit is cooked with morels, or à la havraise Other dishes are sheep's trotters à la
rouennaise, casseroled veal, larded calf's liver braised with carrots, and veal in cream and
mushrooms.
Normandy is also noted for its pastries. Normandy turns out douillons (pears baked in
pastry), craquelins, roulettes in Rouen, fouaces in Caen, fallues in Lisieux, sablés in Lisieux. It is
the birthplace of brioches (especially those from Évreux and Gisors). Confectionery of the
region includes Rouen apple sugar, Isigny caramels, Bayeux mint chews, Falaise berlingots, Le
Havre marzipans, Argentan croquettes, and Rouen macaroons.
Normandy is a major cider-producing region (very little wine is
produced). Perry is also produced, but in less significant quantities.
Apple brandy, of which the most famous variety is calvados, is also
popular.