Slow Tourism
The ports on the English Channel, or La Manche if you're sailing from France, remain unexplored by motorists so we began a research project to slow down the tourism to enjoy the journey itself. First, leave the car behind and take the train. Brittany Ferries sail from three key ports on the south coast of England: Plymouth, Poole and Portsmouth with 5 destinations: Roscoff, Saint-Malo, Cherbourg, Ouistreham and Le Havre. As researchers, we settled on Cherbourg since my only recollection of the port was driving through it very quickly from the ferry. First, though, was the library research. The outcome from this study of archives was a book chapter on Cherbourg and perry for Palgrave Macmillan.
Cherbourg - Perry and Roland Barthes
Derek uncovered archive material on the production of a regional
drink in Normandy made from pears. As a speciality drink, perry seems missing
from the ethnobotany of Cherbourg. Although during the research we did find a
company called Maison Sassy. Sassy have revived poiré, by making a perry
which is composed of 12 varieties of pears, including Vinot, Antricotin and
belle-verge coming mainly from century-old pear trees. The age of pear trees
before they are productive compared with that of apples is one of the reasons
that perry-making has been lost. Would we be able to find Sassy perry in the city
of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin?
For literary enthusiasts in Britain, Cherbourg is celebrated
as the birthplace of Roland Barthes. Barthes explored writing both as a theorist
and also by leaving us meta-examples of many genres, autobiography, and important
for our magazine blog, travel writing. His travel book was on the Empire of Signs
where his explorations discovered that Tokyo has a empty space at its centre. Barthes
often said that he was too young to remember Cherbourg so that this city, too,
has a empty space left by the writer.
Looking for Traces of Barthes
One photograph in Barthes’ autobiography is simply documented ‘Cherbourg, 1916’ (Barthes 1988, 21). It is a black and white photograph of Henriette Binger seated, holding Barthes, who is just a few weeks old. The frame is oval or elliptical, suggesting it was produced by a professional photography studio. Binger lived in Cherbourg at the time of her son’s birth, 12 November 1915. By diligent research we found that Henriette Binger’s address in 1915 was 107 rue de la Bucaille, and that street, at least, still shows on Google Maps, or it did in May 2022.
Planning a Walking Route
In the hotel, I studied a map of Cherbourg and carefully wrote out a route in broken lines in my field journal for easy reference the following morning as I made the walk. Here's the copy...
rue du Port, then after 4 buildings [Note: Detour first to 50 Rue Grande Rue
to see bookshop, Au Petit Bouquiniste, then back] left again into rue des
Fossés. Long walk then right into
rue du Commerce then left into rue au Blé, a square with trees and a green
circular building turn right into
Pl. de la Fontaine which becomes rue Christine very long walk, cross major intersection into rue de l'Ancien Hôtel Dieu. then take right fork into
rue de la Bucaille very long walk to 107'.
More of the story is now in our 2023 book on travel writing.
Where we begin to develop these route-planning notes, first into field-notes
from the journey and then into paragraphs of final story.
Return to Cherbourg-en-Cotentin
Of course, we have more methods for fieldwork now and need to find our way to Cherbourg-en-Cotentin to unearth the details for a complete travel story. Does anyone sell poiré by Sassy for example? Does the bookshop 'Au petit Bouquiniste' have any Barthes' treasures in stock?
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