Cap Lévi is architect designed. Built in 1947 to replace another victim of WW2, Cap Lévi is modest next to its neighbour down the road at Pointe de Barfleur. It sits in farmland at the end of a country road, and can easily be missed. You have to leave the D116 road from or to Cherbourg and weave your way through Fermanville to get to it by car and then foot. It commands sweeping views but is set well back from the coast it guards.
Cap Lévi is a period piece. I have often thought what a splendid living room that watch room below the light would make. 360° views, cosy in storms and with the light flashing out above one's head (and where one could take the air on the lantern balcony and drink in the superb views). Just imagine inviting folk up there for an apéro! It is not open to the public so I can't confirm whether there is a wood burning stove installed up there; I suspect not.
Check out the Lighthouse Directory for more information. You will note that Huelse is often listed in entries there as a source for historic postcard views. Worth clicking at that link to see what the original light looked like. So many wonderful confections were lost to the Unpleasantness but the opportunities afforded for new directions in lighthouse design have often been embraced to good effect.
The rest of this post concerns feux not phares. They are interesting as part of the coastal scene, they are even included in the Lighthouse Directory but they are not lighthouses per se.
Cherbourg has quite a lot of navigational lights and beacons. This is the harbour that played host to the great atlantic liners and the Cunard terminal is still extant. In 2009 we saw the recently launched Cunard cruise liner Queen Victoria tied up alongside and so hung around to watch the ship manoeuvre out of the port There is a large naval installation to the west of the town. But only Cap Lévi counts as a lighthouse for this port; all the rest are feux.
Fort de l'Ouest. The most distinctive of these lights is passed to starboard by the outgoing ferry to Poole or Portsmouth and many unenlightened passengers probably think they are sailing past a pixy lighthouse. Seemingly they are: after considering this a mere beacon I now discover that Phares and Balises, who look after these things, have classified Fort de l'Ouest as a phare! It displays its name and guards the Querqueville entrance into the Grande Raz. It has a lantern which is painted red and has a Fresnel optic showing either red or white depending on the angle of approach. Here it is as snapped (inset) from the early morning ferry in summer '19. The main picture is back to Cap Lévi.
The illustration of Cap Lévi is by Jean Benoît Héron.The photographs are by me exclusively.
