13. Pont-Audemer to Notre-Dame de Gravenchon

The church is of Romanesque origin. Its choir dates from the 13th century, and its nave was rebuilt in the 15th century. It is the church of Blacarville. That of Saint-Mards (late 12th century) was demolished in 1892. The choir and the tower were transformed into an English cottage.
The building is oriented and follows an elongated plan ending with a flat chevet.
The gable wall features a basket-handle portal surmounted by a statue in an arched niche with a decoration of three-lobed lancets. The chevet is pierced by two arched openings surmounted by a lobe in a pointed arch bay. It is flanked on its south side by a sacristy. The gable wall is surmounted by a bell tower with a square base topped by an octagonal corneville-type spire.

The history of the apple begins in prehistoric times in the Central Asian plateaus to arrive at the domestic apple (Malus pumila) consumed today.
 After the decline due to barbarian invasions, such as the Huns, paradoxically originating from the same regions as the apple, 32 varieties were created between the 8th and 15th centuries. This revival took place mainly in Normandy. Indeed, as soon as the "Viking" invasions were over, the clergy and the nobility encouraged the planting of apple trees. Thus, before its annexation by France in 1204, this country was a real apple tree nursery. After its invasion, it became the orchard of France.

The Nature Reserve is a 148-hectare natural area of great ecological interest. Located in the Marais Vernier, in an old meander of the Seine, it is composed of the former National Nature Reserve of Mannevilles, owned by the State since 1973 and the Marais de Bouquelon acquired in 2002 by the Regional Nature Park of the Loops of the Norman Seine. The Park is responsible for its management. It is characterized by wet meadows that have developed on peaty environments, characterized by a very specific flora: loose-flowered orchids, drosera, marsh troscart, cirse des anglais...

The site of the Reserve is conducive to nesting and hosts many migratory birds: snipe, curlew, corncrake ... The white stork present since 1993, can be observed in flight or on one of the many nests built in the marsh.

It is in these places that the experience of extensive grazing by Highland cattle and then Camargue horses was born at the end of the 1970s. Chosen for their rusticity, and their lighter weight adapted to the peaty and humid soil, these hardy "brushcutters" rebalance the natural environment.

The real Norman house is not just any house. It's a house made of mud, from the land of his country. A house that blends perfectly into its environment, in a harmonious plant-mineral balance, modulated over the years. It is a house of tradition that must be preserved, in its foundations and also in its spirit. For the architectural heritage is not only the illustrious castle or the listed manor house of the canton, it is also the modest house of the village, the ancestors' farm and its annex buildings... It is these peasant constructions, often of great quality, moving in their simplicity and great diversity, witnesses of rural civilisations from which we all, so to speak, come.  

In the Seine estuary, discover a church of Romanesque origin with its 12th century portal and porch, which was remodelled in the 16th century with a Gothic-style choir and an exceptional lantern tower. The name Notre-Dame de Bon Port evokes the maritime character of the city. It is therefore not surprising to find ex-voto and marine graffiti, as well as an admirable collection of model ships. Also worth seeing are the 15th century polychrome stained-glass windows that evoke the history of navigation on the Seine in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The legend of the Telemachus: by far the most famous of the ships displayed in the church. The Télémaque sank in Quillebeuf on 3 January 1790 with, it is said, the fortune of King Louis XVI and the treasures of the abbeys of the Seine.

The Bac de Quillebeuf-sur-Seine was maintained following the construction of the Tancarville and Brotonne Bridges, thanks to the determination of the inhabitants of all the surrounding villages, who did not want to see this means of direct connection disappear.

In 1873, the steam ferry replaced the old sailing ferry, thus limiting the risks of drifting due to strong currents. It is because of these drifts that we can still see today disused holds several hundred meters from the usual slipway, on each of the two shores.

The Bac de Quillebeuf-sur-Seine is also accessible to pedestrians, allowing you to discover Quillebeuf-sur-Seine from a new point of view as the currents change!

The development of the Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon refinery, located in Port-Jérôme-sur-Seine, has generated tremendous demographic and economic development on the banks of the Seine.
The port was created in 1860. Its name is a tribute to King Jérôme Bonaparte, Napoleon I's younger brother. Oil storage began in 1933 to supply a refinery. The whole complex was set on fire in 1940 to prevent the enemy from taking it over. When the refinery was liberated and rebuilt, today it can process up to 12 million tons of crude oil.
A symbol of economic growth, the Church of St. George was built in 1958 on the site of the first church destroyed in the 19th century. To underline the sobriety of the architectural lines, Max Ingrand created the beautiful modern stained glass windows that illuminate the church. Inside (but the church is not always open) you can admire a 15th century Virgin and Child and a statue of St George slaying the dragon that adorns the east façade.