La Cité de la Mer
La Cité de la Mer is a museum dedicated to underwater research and deep sea research. The museum is located in the former transatlantic port station of Cherbourg , which was served by the Paris-Cherbourg railway. The museum was inaugurated on April 29, 2002.
Transatlantic port station
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The former transatlantic port station with its Art Deco building was inaugurated on July 30, 1933 by President Albert Lebrun . A short time later, the building was given the nickname Notre-Dame des Queens , with Queens standing for the passenger steamer of the same name. It was blown up by the German units on June 23, 1944 shortly after the Allies landed in Normandy and inaugurated again in 1952 in the presence of Antoine Pinay .
The former transatlantic port station had not been used for over 70 years and was partially destroyed before the rest of the building was added to the list of historical monuments in 1989 and 2000 .
museum
After the first French nuclear submarine Le Redoutable was decommissioned, the idea of exhibiting the submarine in a museum was born in Cherbourg. The French submarines were or will also be built in Cherbourg, see list of submarines built in Cherbourg (French).
La Cité de la Mer has been very successful since it opened and is currently the second most visited attraction in the Manche department after the Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey .
The exhibitions of La Cité de la Mer
Titanic
The Titanic stopped at Cherbourg on her maiden voyage. The rooms enable visitors to relive the journey and to put themselves in the shoes of the epoch.
Le Redoutable submarine
The Redoutable is the French navy's first nuclear-powered submarine . It was built in Cherbourg, christened and launched by French President Charles de Gaulle on March 29, 1967. After it was decommissioned in 1991, it is now the largest nuclear submarine in the world that can be viewed.
Deep sea
17 aquariums (one of them 10.7 m deep) with more than 1000 fish show how humans were inspired by the world of fish (see bionics ) in order to develop new research devices and to dive deeper.
Equipment and devices
There is an exhibition of international underwater devices (or their models) that have been made available to the museum, including Alvin , Mir , Nautile and Bathysphere . It also introduces the people who developed or tested these devices.
The Archimède bathyscaphe, made available by the National Naval Museum, can also be visited. It reached a depth of 9,545 m in the Kuril Trench.
Furthermore, industrial submarines of the COMEX are on display.
In 2004, Cherbourg was recognized by the United States as the only foreign site of remembrance of the Civil War . In 1864 a naval battle between the Alabama and the Kearsarge was fought off Cherbourg. An Alabama cannon is on display in the reception room.
Virtual marine exploration adventure
Since April 2008 it has been possible to take part in a so-called virtual research trip in the deep sea and on the sea floor (“We have stepped on the ocean floor”). Museum visitors can experience this in four small groups of 15 people each. Parts of a film plot are repeatedly shown in which researchers prepare a new expedition, with the group of visitors to the museum as a new research team being selected as the target. The groups keep going to other rooms or booths, in which simple tests such as standing in sloping and wobbly rooms are carried out and some hand signals for communication are shown. Finally, an apparent submarine is entered and visitors can see the deep sea virtually in a large window. At the end, the head of research is shown again in a film at a press conference. Recordings of the visitor group during the previous tour are then inserted into his presentation so that the museum visitors can see themselves as part of the research group. The program is particularly suitable for families.
Media library
The media library, which is accessible to all visitors, is located in the reception room. It provides the public with extensive documentation about the underwater and deep sea world, and also about the former transatlantic port station of Cherbourg.
More than 3,120 books, 18,000 magazine articles and 230 DVDs are available in French and English. The media library also contains documentaries and films with a functional background on these topics.
literature
- Denez L'Hostis, Daniel Bentley: La Cité de la Mer, Cherbourg: l'émotion des profondeurs. Imprimerie Lecaux, Tourlaville 2003, ISBN 2-9519456-0-4 .
- Dominique Gros: Cherbourg en escale. Le Vent Qui Passe, Cherbourg, 2005, ISBN 9782915374025 .
Movie
- Mathias Haentjes, director: ocean liners - golden years. Documentation about the era of the Atlantik-Liner , Germany, 2019, Radio Bremen , 52 min. (Image and film material for "Titanic", " Britanic " (wreck), from Cherbourg from Gare Maritime , from the Hapag-Hallen in Cuxhaven, to the " Queen Mary 2 ", " Normandie ", " United States " - Philadelphia, " Ex-Astoria " - the oldest traveling passenger ship in this category. Information from the broadcaster arte , accessed on 27 Feb 2020)
Web links
- Website on citedelamer.com
- La deuxième vie du "Redoutable" , René Moirand, Cols bleus No. 2395, May 10, 1997. Available on the Netmarine.net site
Coordinates: 49 ° 38 ′ 47 " N , 1 ° 37 ′ 2" W.