Seahorses at La Cite de la Mer
La Cité de la Mer is a tourist attraction in Cherbourg with the largest and deepest aquarium in Europe. These seahorses floated in their own smaller aquarium. There were also sharks, jellyfish, and other exotic sea animals. The decommissioned “Le Redoutable”, the biggest submarine in the world that can be toured, is located at La Cité de la Mer also—a reminder of how the French swore "never again" after WWII. Nuclear weapons, known as dissuasion weapons in French apparently, were once carried on “Le Redoutable”.
One of our most exciting adventures occurred at La Cité de la Mer. There was a summer exhibition, but all Daughter Number Two and I knew was that it was called "On a marché sous la mer" and we were to show up at 4 p.m. We obediently did so, and were told to stand in the yellow line. We waited, while other colored lines were filled, and finally someone came out and explained everything. In French. Daughter Number Two and I looked at each other, and wondered if this was like the scene in Life Is Beautiful where the German officer promises cookies and jam to the team that won the most points. (The little boy in front of us looked just like Joshua from the film.) We figured the winner got to take the submarine home.
We dutifully followed the Yellow Team to another room, where some more explanations went on in French, but finally I heard "en Anglais" and I raised my hand. We were given headphones, and a yellow rubber smock.
By this time, we were getting pretty freaked—neither one of us are much for water sports—but the English voice on the headphones reassured us somewhat. We smiled at the green light, put our smocks on in front of the mirror, and preceded to do all the other silly things we were instructed to do, as part of our "preparations" for an undersea "voyage".
Or so we thought.
I couldn't help thinking the French were easily entertained—the whole thing seemed really cheesy. But then, when it was all over, we went into a room for "debriefing" and realized that while we were doing all these stupid things, including bouncing around on our "ride" under the sea, we were being filmed. Those sneaky French! They'd spliced together the footage and created a really funny video.
Also at La Cité were some of the relics from the CSS Alabama, the Confederate ship that sank off the coast of Cherbourg, right off the beach where we were staying, or so we were told.
More photos below.
Le Redoubtable, a nuclear submarine from the French navy, built in Cherbourg. There was also a pretty good exhibit on submarines in general.
One of the exotic fish in the huge 500,000 litre aquarium.
The cannon from the Confederate ship CSS Alabama, which sank after engaging with the Union ship USS Kearsarge.
