Hermione is an extraordinary project and one which for us at Magellan, is very close to our hearts. It has just won a Highly Commended award from the venerable British Guild of Travel Writers and is still only three-quarters of the way through the “grand idea” which is to recreate, at the 18th century French naval dockyard of Rochefort, Poitou-Charentes, France, a replica of the ship that took Lafayette over to the Americas for the War of Independence in 1780.
It’s not just a modern day replica however – it’s built using the same skills as were originally used and original methods – to plans which apparently came from the British Admiralty (based on the plans for Hermione’s captured sister ship, La Concorde). She will then sail across the Atlantic over to the USA Spring 2015 and will tour the eastern coast of America in celebration – Norfolk, Annapolis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, Newport and New York passing appropriately by the Statue of Liberty.
What we love is that Hermione has been – since the moment of her recreation – a living museum. We first visited as she was being built – we even met the British craftsman specialising in carving figureheads – Andy Peters – who has since written an authoritative book on the subject. The lions of Hermione apparently had to be more flamboyant for the French – the British had more restrained tastes!
The Hermione project has brought specialist teams from all over the world to work on her – all of whom were happy to work in plain view and chat about their activities to the hoards of visitors who climbed all over her decks – more than 250,000 visitors per year at the last count.
Hermione will return to Rochefort, her home port, after her voyage to America in August 2015 and we (the dastardly British) salute her and wish her well. She is currently undertaking, as you can see, her sea trials but will be back home to re-open as a living museum again mid-November to March 2015 in Rochefort. Go and see her before she sails – she is magnificent.
Rochefort is part of Charente-Maritime and very easy to visit if you are based in La Rochelle. Hermione is on Twitter @HermioneVoyage and is the same on Facebook. Charente-Maritime is @Departement17 on Twitter and on Facebook is Departement de la Charente-Maritime.
Contributor: Sue Lowry Photos: Copyright – CMT – S.Sicot
Magellan PR is on twitter: @MagellanPR, on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube & Google+: Magellan PR. On Flickr, Sue Lowry. For more information on our company, visit www.magellan-pr.com and follow our other blog focussing on travel predominantly in the UK: A3Traveller. A3Traveller is on twitter: @A3Traveller.
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