La forêt de Grimbosq

The Grimbosq Forest (covering 475 hectares) is the property of the town of Caen and is located 19km to the south of the town and 7km from Thury Harcourt. Several attractions on site: marked walking routes, picnic area, pond, animal park, arboretums with forest species and special collections, "Olivet" feudal mound (alongside the GR36, archaeological site) and mountain biking route.

In the forest, Trivia, the three-faced mother goddess, was honored, as was later Diana and then Saint Anne, to protect the hunters to whom she guaranteed the abundance of game or to implore rain, the source of a fertile harvest. At the end of a nightly sacrifice, the goddess used to wash the blood-stained linen in the water of a fountain. Sainte Anne, honored by the Christian devotion of the pilgrims, always has her chapel in the forest of Grimbosq, in the shelter of a rocky cliff which borders the Orne, vis-a-vis the Val de Viard. Numerous processions coming from the neighboring churches went there on July 23, accompanied by the sound of the tinterelles. Once the wishes were granted, the return to the houses was precipitated by the arrival of a sudden heavy rain (excerpt from "Journey in medieval Norman Switzerland" by M. Thiesse)