events
activities
events
Discover all the upcoming events in Merville-Franceville Plage and its surroundings :
Sports and activities
Explore all the sports activities available in Merville-Franceville Plage :
🎥 réalisée par Fifth Agency
Estuaire de l'orne
A protected natural area, the estuary is a crossroads of life, a garden under close surveillance where colors and textures blend, with sand and mud, fresh, brackish, and saltwater mingling together. It serves as a reservoir for a delightful biodiversity, from clumps of spartina to harbor seals. The estuary lives in rhythm with the tides, and its landscapes have been shaped by water, with fluctuations in sea level altering the coastline.
The whims of nature have been accompanied by human interventions to defy the sea, combat siltation, dig canals, or reclaim land.
DUNES OF MERVILLE
The dunes of Merville form the largest preserved ensemble in Calvados. Embryonic dunes at the top of the beach, exposed to salt, wooded dunes – rare in Normandy –, “grey” dunes fixed by the roots of vigilant marram grass or sand lyme, fragile white dunes shaped and destroyed by the sea and the wind, they are adored and… abused.
Stay on the walking paths to discover them.
8km of beach
Enjoy the long stretches of sandy beach with your family, where you can have fun and engage in "cockle fishing." The Franceville deposit is renowned, attracting crowds armed with rakes during high tides. These shore fishing expeditions are a healthy activity to enjoy the fresh sea air and discover the vibrant life of the intertidal zone, where the tides ebb and flow.
You can also relax in our "Beach Baskets." These VIP beach chairs will protect you from the whims of the weather. Introduced to our beach in 2017, they are inspired by the iconic furniture of the venerable German resort of Heringsdorf (located on the Baltic Sea), our twin city.
Family hike
Short and long holidays offer the opportunity to open your eyes and ears wide and to satisfy your curiosity. The natural heritage has some great surprises in store for you. Country paths, old stones, streams and town centers also have surprising stories to tell you.
On foot or by bike, Merville-Franceville offers long paths along the dunes or in the countryside.
Walk along the dunes to the bay of Orne and take the time to admire this life-size painting...
Merville battery
Objective assigned to the 9th battalion of the 6th Airborne, this German structure had been built to defend the estuary against an Allied landing. At a replica site, 750 British soldiers had painstakingly rehearsed the attack. Dropped in a deluge of fire on the night of June 6, 1944, only the 150 survivors of the parachute drops defied adversity and neutralized the guns.
The Merville Battery Museum houses an authentic Douglas C-47 that took part, within the 9th USAAF, in all airborne operations in the European theater of operations during the Second World War.
Address
Hôtel Chez Marion
10 Place de la Plage
14810 Merville-Franceville Plage