Activities of leisure

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Granville seaside resort /
Activities of leisure

Activities of leisure

Bathing places: the beach of the Plat Gousset, in the city center

Crédit photo © Ouest-France

The beach of the "Plat Gousset" situated in full city center, holds its name of the small pocket of the vest in which people used to slid their purse or their watch ("gousset" in french). When this pocket was flat ("plat" in french), it meant that the walker was not able anymore to stroll to the quite close Casino's promenade for that they had to pay.

160 beach huts succeeded the portable cabins which allowed the beautiful ladies to bathe without being seen with their swimming costume. It is far the time of the swimming costume which covered the bust up to wrists, and legs until the bottom of knees, without forgetting the hat of indispensable bath to keep an impeccable hairstyle...

Police of the sea swimming

From 1834 a regulations of baths was necessary to guarantee the public tranquillity: it is the birth of the police of the Sea swimming. The first publishing of that official document, in 1837, bounds the zones of baths according to the sex and to the clothing of the swimmers. On one side the women and the children. On the other one the men separated into two categories: the dressed and the non-dressed. These last ones did not practise the naturism, but bathed in their clothes of every day, at worst with their underwear !

At the end of the “Plat Gousset” walk, a staircase gives access to the “Les Rhumbs” villa which is surrounded by a remarkable cliff garden looking out over the sea, facing the Channel Islands. Build and decorated between 1906 and 1930 by Madeleine Dior and her son Christian, it was a major source of inspiration for the couturier.

The pink colour which underlines the facade and the grey gravel of this seaside house were colours used by Christian Dior in his different creations: «I was born in Granville on January 21st, 1905. Both Parisian and Norman, I am very attached to the country which saw me being born and keep in my mind the softest souvenir of my childhood house. My life, my style, own almost everything to its situation and to its architecture ".

The family house was sold in 1931 because of Madeleine Dior's death, and because of the ruin of its father Maurice linked to the crisis of 1929; it was bought by the city of Granville in 1936 and became in 1997, the first French museum dedicated to a couturier.

Tour of the rock swimming competition

9 and 10 July 2011

It is the athletic competition of the summer.
About a hundred swimmers race more than 2 kms around the rock of Granville.
Departure from the harbour. Arrival at the Plat Gousset Beach nearby the Casino.

Fishing on foot

The most important spring tides of Europe attract the amateur fishermen of the border regions

Regional Water Sport Centre

Boulevard des Amiraux
50400 Granville

+33 (0)2 33 91 22 60

+33 (0)2 33 50 51 99

crng50@wanadoo.fr

www.crng.fr

Top French Sailing Centre.
Week-long lessons during the spring and summer holidays starting at age 4 and adult lessons. Optimist, dinghy, catamaran, windsurfing, habitable sports boats.
Rental all year long : Sandsailer, kayak, windsurfing, dinghy and catamaran.
Weekly pratctice sessions under the sports program, all year round. Catamaran, dinghy and windsurfing.