(A literary and climate-themed journey through Europe, one bookshop at a time).
NORMANDY TO TOULOUSE – Memory, Resistance & Storytelling by Sea and Stone
After crossing beneath the Channel via Le Shuttle — a slightly unnerving experience for a claustrophobe — I emerged into France and rolled south along the coast to Boulogne-sur-Mer. A windswept town with echoes of ancient tides and wartime crossings, it was here that the second chapter of the Euro Book Trek truly opened.
📍 Places Visited
Boulogne-sur-Mer: France’s oldest fishing port and once the Roman capital of Gaul. Beneath its ramparts, I found a quiet book swap nestled in a side street, and placed a signed copy of Salt & Seeds there for a stranger to find. A town shaped by tides and trade, like so many of the communities my book speaks to.
Juno Beach, Courseulles-sur-Mer: This visit was deeply personal. My son’s great-grandfather came ashore here in 1944 with the Canadian army, part of the D-Day landings. To walk that same beach is an extraordinary thing — sobering, humbling, connective. Still framed in remnants of war.
War Cemetery, near Onahama Beach: The resting place of those who never made it past that first terrible day. White crosses in perfect lines. I couldn’t help thinking of the generational echoes — what they preserved, and what we must protect, as war and fascism rise again in Europe.
Book Swap in a red English Phone Box, Bernières-sur-Mer (near Juno Beach): Painted bright red and filled with paperbacks. I placed a signed copy of Salt & Seeds inside, for the many English readers around these parts.
Caen: A city scarred by WWII, but now thoughtfully rebuilt. The Caen Memorial Museum is a powerful archive of 20th-century conflict — but also peace-building. This stop gave me a chance to reflect on memory as civic duty, and the role of narrative in resisting authoritarian forgetting. Caen have real concerns about climate change and are taking preparations seriously.
Tours: A beautiful riverside city and a way-marker south, where history feels deeply woven into the streets. Known for its Renaissance architecture and commitment to heritage preservation. I didn’t stop long — but long enough to admire how this place balances old and new, tradition and transition.
Oradour-sur-Glane: A ghost village, preserved in silence. In 1944, German SS troops massacred 643 inhabitants — mostly women and children — and left the ruins as they were. Visiting here is not like walking through history. It is walking through trauma. Burned prams. Rusting cars. Church walls blackened by fire and pitted with bullet holes where people prayed for sanctuary before the end. I left no book here — only silence and a promise to remember.
Limoges: A small city, near Oradour’s shadow. Here, I found Le Bibliovore, a warm, independent bookshop where I left bookmarks and had a thoughtful chat with the bookseller about climate fiction, art, and resilience. He seemed to understand exactly what I was doing.
🌊 Climate & Resilience Insight
Normandy’s coastlines are under increasing threat from erosion and rising sea levels. The same beaches that bore guns and sacrifice now face subtler, slower battles. Local initiatives are emerging: dune restoration, floodplain buffering, and heritage-sensitive urban planning. This is the slow fight — not against invasion, but inundation. Historic bunkers and precious land are being lost to increasing storm-driven tides. Building plans have recently been shelved due to worries of faster sea level rise than anticipated.
As I moved inland, the danger shifted — not from water, but from heat and fire. The Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, including Limoges, is seeing hotter, drier summers and renewed investment in forest fire management. Community allotments, sustainable transport initiatives, and climate adaptation plans are all growing — just like the themes at the heart of Salt & Seeds.
📚 Literary Encounters
- Boulogne-sur-Mer Book Swap: A handwritten sign inviting readers to take what they needed and leave what they’d loved.
- Red Phone Box Book Swap, Bernières-sur-Mer: A British icon rewilded into a book refuge. I imagined a traveller finding Salt & Seeds and feeling compelled to take it with them.
- Le Bibliovore, Limoges: Small, welcoming, and rich in atmosphere. I left bookmarks and talked with the bookseller about ecological literature.
🤝 People & Moments
In Normandy, I met a young man who had recently left the French army. He told me, quietly, that he felt dreadfully lonely and unsure of his next step. His friends had all stayed on or moved elsewhere. I told him he might find solace in writing — in creating characters, telling stories, giving voice to what aches. I hope he will be okay.
In Limoges, a woman asked if Salt & Seeds was a sad book. I said, “It’s honest. But it ends with growth.” She nodded. “Then it is a hopeful one.”
📘 Book Drops
Books placed at:
- Boulogne-sur-Mer book swap
- English phone box book swap, Bernières-sur-Mer near Juno Beach
Bookmarks placed at:
- Le Bibliovore, Limoges
🌱 Closing Thought
This leg of the journey was a descent — from the cliffs of Normandy into the shadowed ruins of Oradour, and on to the flowering south. Each place reminded me that resistance isn’t only about defiance — it’s also about remembrance. It’s about how we carry pain, and how we plant something in its place.
Next stop: Toulouse — where aerospace dreams meet speculative fiction, and my old friend Chris is waiting to meet me with stories of her own.
Alan Raw Writes 
Leave a comment