Le Redoutable Nuclear Submarine

February 18^th, 2026 

My ferry wasn’t until 6:15 pm so I had some free time on my last day in France.  After catching up on a bit of blogging (yes, all of this takes some time), I drove north in misty rain and a blanket of grey skies to the village of Barfleur, which is a member of the Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (The Most Beautiful Villages of France)…well maybe not today with the weather.

The dreary morning I woke up to.

The harbour of Barfleur.

It was a cute town, but I'm not sure about "most beautiful".

The church at one point of the harbour.

This is a memorial for those who have died at sea (mainly fishing I assume).  It was interesting that there were more names on this memorial than the one for WWII by the church.

A relic from the old times.

Barfleur has some interesting history including being the location where the Normans' departure before the Battle of Hastings in 1066.  A plaque commemorating the occasion is on that rock on the right.

Kinda hard to see.

No, this isn't a railroad to a watery grave...but rails to launch a boat.

One of the streets of Barfleur.

I headed to Cherbourg and visited a tourist place known as La Cité de la Mer (The City of the Sea) which is comprised of several attractions including the one I was most interested in, Le Redoutable, a decommissioned nuclear submarine.

The main hall of La Cité de la Mer.

You can see La Redoutable in dry dock to the left of the building.

Le Redoutable submarine was commissioned in 1971, my birthyear.  It was France’s first nuclear submarine.  Not only was it powered by a nuclear reactor, but it could carry up to 16 nuclear warhead missiles.  The submarine operated until 1991 and during that time it conducted 51 patrols of 70 days in length with an estimated 90,000 hours under the sea and travelled 1.27 million kilometres!

It was shocking to see how big this thing is.

It's HUGE!!!  In fact it is 128 meters long and is the largest submarine open to the public in the world!

Looking towards the stern.

From the stern looking towards the bow.

The massive propellor.

The tour started at the back of the boat, in the engine room.

It seemed all very complicated.

Complicated controls...

The electrical control panels.

This is a hatch for a refuge area in an emergency.  There were a few of theses around the sub.

This is the area where the nuclear reactor used to be.  They cut that section out and replaced it with this metal hull in creating the exhibition, so there are no traces of nuclear radiation.

A few photos from a video that was playing of the removal of the nuclear reactor section.  Notice the outer and inner hull rings where sea water could be flooded in for ballast.

The missile silos.  The submarine could hold 16 missiles with one-megatonne nuclear warheads with a range of over 3000 kilometres.

Scary to think that the contents along this hallway could have wiped out many cities.

Control panels for the missiles...again, looks complicated.

But then they had these on the missile decks...simple communication tools like two empty tin cans and a string!

Into the command & control centre of the sub.

A plotting chart.

Lots of lights, buttons and dials.

The piloting controls...looks similar to an airplane cockpit.

The captain's cabin.

This is looking straight up, to the conning tower.

Looking down the officers' quarters hallway.  The submarine's complement consisted of 15 officers and 120 sailors.

They went with the stainless steel motif for the officers' bathroom.

A tiny shower room.

Mind your head!

Looking around the officers' living area.

The officers' galley and dining area.

There was a real 70s look to the officers' dining and lounge area.

The mess hall for the rest of the crew.

The galley.

Surprisingly every mariner had their own private bunk.  Many submarines would have three sailors share a bunk, rotating on 8 hour shifts, so there was always someone sleeping in it.

There was a lower level where the tour didn't go, but we could see down into it here, where the hospital area was.

At the front of the sub was the torpedo area.  These torpedoes could travel over 15 kilometres to hit their target.  Le Redoutable never fired one in live combat.

The torpedo tube.

This is kind of hard to see, but this is the double hull of the sub.  Seawater could be flooded into the area to act as ballast when the submarine wanted to dive.

It is an impressive beast.

After touring the submarine, there was a hands-on area where you could drive a sub in a simulator, listen to the acoustics of the ocean, learn about hydraulics and more.

I walked over to one of the other exhibits, "Titanic - Return to Cherbourg" and saw a Brittany ferry, but this was not the one that I sailed on later.

I wondered why there was a Titanic exhibit as I thought it had set sail from Southampton to New York, but it actually made a stop in Cherbourg to pick up passengers from continental Europe.  I didn't spend too much time in this exhibit as I didn't have too much time and wanted to check out the various mini-subs at the entrance hall.

The Great Gallery of Men and Machines consisted of a variety of small and large non-military submarines mainly for ocean exploration.  It made me recall seeing TV shows Jacques Cousteau as a kid in the late 1970s.  Some of the mini-subs were strange looking contraptions for sure.

The Archimedes was the largest of the bunch and in 1962 it dove to 9650 meters which at the time was the second deepest ever!

This is a cutout replica of the tiny sphere inside the Archimedes where the submariners were housed.  A sphere is the most pressure resistant shape.  You can see it in the sub in the background on the left.

This minisub was different than others, it did not stay airtight but purposefully let the seawater in.  Three divers would use it to descend to depths of 60 meters.

This is a replica of a very different looking sub called the Deepsea Challenger, that was used by the director James Cameron, who happens to be Canadian.  The deepest dive he did in the Challenger was 10,908 meters.

This one has five propellers facing in various directions and was meant to move about more like a helicopter.

This one is cute.

It was time to head to the ferry terminal for my 6:15 pm sailing.  La Cité de la Mer was an impressive place and I thoroughly enjoyed the tour of Le Redoutable.

Loaded on the ferry.

The first time I saw the sun all day was at sunset, as we were pulling away from the dock.

I had been watching the Olympics Men's Hockey quarterfinal of Canada vs Czechia while waiting in the line up.  I figured I'd lose my cell signal and miss then end of the game, but amazingly they had the BBC broadcast of it on the boat.  Canada was losing 3-2 with 4-5 minutes left and the announcer said that they would soon switch to the British women's curling team game...noooo!  Thankfully they didn't, Canada scored with 3 minutes left to tie it and then won in overtime!!!

I kept busy on the ferry ride, trying to catch up on my blogging and the 4 1/2 hours flew by.  We arrived around 10 pm local time (England is one hour behind France) and I had planned on staying in the van near the ferry terminal.  However, I passed under a bridge and the road was completely flooded with about a foot of water.  I slowly plowed Octi through it and saw the entrance for the parking lot I was going to stay in.  It was dark and I couldn't see how far the water went down the laneway...and I didn't want to get stuck.  So I pressed on to my auntie's place as it was only 40 minutes away.

That concludes my mainland Europe and Morocco leg of this trip.  Next it's a short 8 day roadtrip to Scotland with Naomi...should be fun!