Bay Of Veys

The bay of Veys in the regional natural park of the Marais du Cotentin is the point at which four major rivers run into the English Channel - the Aure, the Douve, the Taute and the Vire. The rivers' courses would often shift and split into smaller channels and this coupled with the low lying ground of the surrounding marshes, made the area virtually impassable to all but a few guides, from before Roman times up to the start of the 16th century. At that date the first permanent bridge to cross the Taute was built. During the next three hundred and fifty years the land in the bay area was systematically drained, the process only finally being halted in 1975.

The landscape of the bay is now a mixture of channels and fields, with farmers and migrating birds living in close proximity. The land reclaimed from the sea is very fertile, and the wide intertidal area is farmed for oysters, making the bay of Veys area economically much richer than in the days where parents sent their children into the marshland to collect leeches to sell to doctors!

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