Cherbourg: La Cité de la Mer
Nov 28, 2010 20:37:17 GMT
Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2010 20:37:17 GMT
Sometimes I choose my weekend destinations more or less at random, one of the criteria often being "where haven't I been yet?" I spun the arrow and it hit Cherbourg this time. I was actually in Cherbourg for a night one or two years ago, but when one travels with an invalid, it is impossible to actually visit something that you would like to see. So I saved this visit for later.
I knew that I wanted to visit the Cité de la Mer, if only for the architecture. Instead of demolishing the ocean liner terminal, like they did in Le Havre in May 2009, Cherbourg decided to save the building and create a museum. (Actually, it should be mentioned that the Germans pretty much destroyed both buildings themselves in 1944, but France put them back together by 1949.)
Anyway, first I had to get to Cherbourg, and that was not the easiest thing in the world for some strange reason.
Nevertheless, I finally got there.
The new ferry terminal is next door, and an Irish ferry was getting ready to leave.
There is also a cruise terminal, and something that I suspected about the majority of cruise passengers seems to be confirmed on these signs.
Okay, back to the Cité de la Mer. The building is indeed quite impressive. It was able to handle two ocean liners simultaneously and put the passengers on trains to Paris, all in the same building.
It was just as cold inside the shell of the building as outdoors, in other words -4°. Would I find some heat somewhere?
In any case, the first thing to be visited was the decommissioned nuclear submarine, the Redoutable, which was in active service from 1971 to 1985. Frankly, I have never been interested in submarines and never visited the (non nuclear) submarine on display in the Parc de la Villette in Paris. But since this one is the showpiece of the Cité de la Mer and probably the one of only two nuclear submarines that can be visited anywhere in the world. (The other one is the USS Nautilus from 1954 in Groton, Connecticut.)
I went with an open mind and the audioguide that was provided.
The audioguide was very well done and was available also in English, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian and Russian.
You enter the submarine through the engine room for the visit.
The propellor shaft was sliced in two just to make the visit easier.
My first big surprise was "my god, what a mess!" How can you build a nuclear submarine with such haphazard wiring and plumbing? Jeez! (Then again, when they pull away the panels to show you the wiring of an aircraft by Boeing or Airbus, it all looks just the same in the year 2010.)
click to see the incredible wiring ---> s450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/Cherbourg/?action=view¤t=623f1fdd.pbw
The audioguide went into great detail about the vibrations and cycles of the machinery, generators, etc., having to go backwards and forwards and all sorts of things like that so that the sonic imprint of the vessel would be as discreet as possible.
Escape hatches looked like a hopeless fantasy. Escape to where? The middle of the ocean?
Everything was cramped and designed for skinny short people. I would have never qualified for submarine duty.
And then all of a sudden, in the area where the nuclear warheads were kept, what was the communications device? Brass speaking tubes! Did Jules Verne help to design the French nuclear program?
I suppose that the concept is that they are something that cannot go out of order no matter what happens. Or what?
Here is the container of a missile that could destroy Hiroshima 20 times.
Actually, the missiles each had 8 warheads and about 200 decoys. So if you attacked a country, it looked like 200 nuclear warheads (multiplied by 16, because the submarine was supposed to fire them all at the same time!) were raining down on you, and you had no idea which ones were real and which ones were fake. The audioguide mentioned that each country had so many evil deterrants that it is the reason that none of this stuff has ever been used -- the only weapons in history to have been created not to be used. But hey, we taxpayers had to pay for all of these things anyway. Shit!
Before MSN Messenger, communications went through these ultra modern keyboards. They were already using SMS language, though. TVB = tout va bien and things like that when communicating with the wifey at home.
As big as the submarine appeared from the outside, it was really cramped!
Hey, is this a post about nuclear non destruction or about the Cité de la Mer? When am I going to get back on track?
(maybe in the next segment?)
I knew that I wanted to visit the Cité de la Mer, if only for the architecture. Instead of demolishing the ocean liner terminal, like they did in Le Havre in May 2009, Cherbourg decided to save the building and create a museum. (Actually, it should be mentioned that the Germans pretty much destroyed both buildings themselves in 1944, but France put them back together by 1949.)
Anyway, first I had to get to Cherbourg, and that was not the easiest thing in the world for some strange reason.
Nevertheless, I finally got there.
The new ferry terminal is next door, and an Irish ferry was getting ready to leave.
There is also a cruise terminal, and something that I suspected about the majority of cruise passengers seems to be confirmed on these signs.
Okay, back to the Cité de la Mer. The building is indeed quite impressive. It was able to handle two ocean liners simultaneously and put the passengers on trains to Paris, all in the same building.
It was just as cold inside the shell of the building as outdoors, in other words -4°. Would I find some heat somewhere?
In any case, the first thing to be visited was the decommissioned nuclear submarine, the Redoutable, which was in active service from 1971 to 1985. Frankly, I have never been interested in submarines and never visited the (non nuclear) submarine on display in the Parc de la Villette in Paris. But since this one is the showpiece of the Cité de la Mer and probably the one of only two nuclear submarines that can be visited anywhere in the world. (The other one is the USS Nautilus from 1954 in Groton, Connecticut.)
I went with an open mind and the audioguide that was provided.
The audioguide was very well done and was available also in English, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian and Russian.
You enter the submarine through the engine room for the visit.
The propellor shaft was sliced in two just to make the visit easier.
My first big surprise was "my god, what a mess!" How can you build a nuclear submarine with such haphazard wiring and plumbing? Jeez! (Then again, when they pull away the panels to show you the wiring of an aircraft by Boeing or Airbus, it all looks just the same in the year 2010.)
click to see the incredible wiring ---> s450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/Cherbourg/?action=view¤t=623f1fdd.pbw
The audioguide went into great detail about the vibrations and cycles of the machinery, generators, etc., having to go backwards and forwards and all sorts of things like that so that the sonic imprint of the vessel would be as discreet as possible.
Escape hatches looked like a hopeless fantasy. Escape to where? The middle of the ocean?
Everything was cramped and designed for skinny short people. I would have never qualified for submarine duty.
And then all of a sudden, in the area where the nuclear warheads were kept, what was the communications device? Brass speaking tubes! Did Jules Verne help to design the French nuclear program?
I suppose that the concept is that they are something that cannot go out of order no matter what happens. Or what?
Here is the container of a missile that could destroy Hiroshima 20 times.
Actually, the missiles each had 8 warheads and about 200 decoys. So if you attacked a country, it looked like 200 nuclear warheads (multiplied by 16, because the submarine was supposed to fire them all at the same time!) were raining down on you, and you had no idea which ones were real and which ones were fake. The audioguide mentioned that each country had so many evil deterrants that it is the reason that none of this stuff has ever been used -- the only weapons in history to have been created not to be used. But hey, we taxpayers had to pay for all of these things anyway. Shit!
Before MSN Messenger, communications went through these ultra modern keyboards. They were already using SMS language, though. TVB = tout va bien and things like that when communicating with the wifey at home.
As big as the submarine appeared from the outside, it was really cramped!
Hey, is this a post about nuclear non destruction or about the Cité de la Mer? When am I going to get back on track?
(maybe in the next segment?)