Photo : User:HaguardDuNord / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Le Nez de Jobourg
The Nez de Jobourg is a cape at the tip of La Hague, in the Cotentin, peaking at 128 metres above the Channel. The word "nez" comes from Old Norse "nes", meaning a cape, and so has nothing to do with the organ of the same name.
The rock, an Icartian gneiss, belongs to the oldest geological zone of the Cotentin, about two billion years old. The cliffs shelter an ornithological reserve where the shag, fulmar, herring gull and raven notably nest. Marked paths, including a GR, run across the site, and three caves linked to local legends open in the cliff. The panorama stretches to the Goury lighthouse and Cap de Flamanville, and the Raz Blanchard separates the coast from the Channel Islands. It is the second-most-visited natural site in the Manche département after Mont-Saint-Michel.
