France – ‘Cheese & Calvados in Normandy’

France – ‘Cheese & Calvados in Normandy’

‘Cheese & Calvados in Normandy’ (FRANCE)

Just over an hour’s drive from Paris, a world of golden Calvados and fragrant cheeses await in the Pays D’Auge region.

It’s early November in Normandy’s Pays d’Auge, a picturesque landscape of small towns and villages, rolling meadows dotted with grazing cattle, russet-coloured apple orchards and half-timbered farmsteads complete with their own dairy, apple barn and cider press. The Pays d’Auge region is known for the superior quality and richness of its local produce. This is a land where creamy cheeses rule, with a quartet of France’s finest: Camembert, Pont l’Évêque, Livarot and Pavé d’Auge being made, alongside highly-prized apple-based drinks such as the refreshing aperitif pommeau, robust ciders and especially Calvados. This fiery apple brandy takes its name from a ship that sailed in the ill-fated Spanish Armada of 1588, and has been distilled with typical French passion for more than four hundred years…

Story length: 1,500 words
Available images: 30

Photography by Paul Marshall
Text by Andrew Marshall