Brittany 15: Domfront and Mortain-Bocage, Normandy

Wednesday 5th June 2024

This part of France has so many riches in terms of beautiful and interesting places to visit, we are in serious danger of overload.

Today, we chose to head for Mortain-Bocage, in the Manche Departement of Normandy for a night park-up, but on the way, stopped off to briefly explore Domfront, in the Orne Departement.

Domfront:

The small town of Domfront is designated as a “Petites Cités de Caractère”, of which there are around 200 towns or villages in France. We have visited a number of these during this trip as there seems to be a particular concentration of them in the north west of France.

Domfront is situated on top of a hill overlooking the river Varenne. It has a chateau/castle, which is in ruins, and many medieval buildings in the town centre.

At the time of our visit, there was much work in progress, both on the roads and on the large church, whose large tower/steeple dominates the town.

Inside the church is a huge open space and the area around the altar resembles a cave:

We really enjoyed looking around both the chateau and the town, although most retailers were closed. Despite the Petites Cités de Caractère status, it does not appear to be overly focused on tourism.

There are many multi-lingual information boards around, and a free guide/plan (in English) is available from the Tourist Information Office.

We parked for a couple of hours on the designated aire de camping car, immediately behind the rather grand Marie (town hall).

Access is via a narrow ramp alongside the building. I am glad that Fufu is not one of the many very large motorhomes we have seen, as there was barely enough room for us manoeuvre and park there. There are not many spaces designated for camping cars and only two of three of these would be able to take a longer vehicle.

Mortain-Bocage:

We arrived in Mortain-Bocage just after lunchtime and found a park-up outside the Marie which has a large car park. We occupied one of the last available designated camping car places, of which there were about 8, but the following morning we noticed a couple of late arrivals had just parked in the area for cars. There is also a municipal campsite which is accessed from the back corner of the car park, which has electric hook-up and charges 9 € a night.

Although the town of Mortain-Bocage is nice enough, the main attraction for us here, was some pleasant routes for walking and the two waterfalls, or “cascades”.

The town suffered greatly during WW2, though the church building seems to have been relatively untouched compared to buildings around it:

Inside, the church has a very high ceiling:

Another comparison is provided by this pair of images. The war image is of the left hand side of the building, just behind the roadworks sign.

The town is also alongside a major battleground of WW2, “Hill 314” which involved the United Stated 30th Infantry Division. An information board near the top of the hill gives an account of the battle, which I summarise:

August 6th – 12th 1944: Following D-Day, and after an initial hold-up, the American army had made good progress, breaking through German lines in Normandy, reaching Mortain on the 3rd August. Hitler ordered a counter attack on the 6th August, with “several hundred” Panzer tanks just to the east of Mortain. The American infantry had been ordered to defend Hill 314 at all costs, which they did, over a period of “6 days in hell”, despite the overwhelmingly superior German forces and lack of supplies.

The Petite Chapelle Saint Michel, featured heavily in the fighting”

Looking at the view from the top of this hill, you can see why it was strategically so important. When we visited, there was a group of American ex-soldiers visiting the battleground, all of them too young to have been there at the time, but paying their respects.

I am writing this blog-post on the 6th June, the 80th anniversary of D-Day …in Normandy. Visiting this battlefield site and viewing the many photographs of war devastation displayed in towns on our way, it has become a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. 80 years is obviously before I was born, but not that long before.

Our Brittany trip is approaching its conclusion. We are booked onto the ferry back to Portsmouth on Saturday. All good things …as they say.