In the heart of a Norman village, wander from one work to another...
Bleu de Vire
If I say Bleu de Vire, I can immediately see a culinary uncertainty troubling your panic-stricken taste buds... Bleu is an excellent cheese, with an assertive presence... Vire, but, it's the andouille, in fragrant slices... one plus the other, a good piece of fresh bread, a glass of wine, and it's happiness! Well, not at all!
The truth is much harsher, much harder: Bleu de Vire is granite!
Granite from Saint-Michel-de-Montjoie which, at the beginning of the 20th century, lived at the rhythm of extractions, in about a hundred quarries exploited on the territory of the commune.
Oh, how many proud pilasters, slender columns, statues with perfect curves, but also how many humble sinks, pig troughs, were born this way, to the sound of hammers, the fruit of local know-how?
This granite, Bleu de Vire, you see it at every commemoration under the Arc de Triomphe, since the tomb of the unknown soldier is made of it, as is the Place Georges Pompidou in Paris, where the paving of the Roissy airport, among others, is made of it?
Strolling through the works
Saint-Michel-de-Montjoie... it is not a museum, it is not a park either, it is both at the same time, a park-museum located in the heart of the town, and in which you will meet, in the course of your quiet stroll, all kinds of works... A quiet, unusual, and very interesting walk.
You will see the reconstitution of an open-air quarry, a collection concerning rural life, with examples of unique achievements, another dedicated to artists, a third dealing with the use of granite in roadways and architecture ... About 130 carved pieces ... And do not miss the arboretum, which mixes trees, plants, and granite .
Parc Musée du granit
Le Bourg
50670 Saint-Michel-de-Montjoie
Tél. : 02 33 59 02 22