VIMOUTIERS, due south of Livarot, contains yet another cheese museum, at 10 av Général-de-Gaulle (May–Oct Mon 2–6pm, Tues–Sat 9am–noon & 2–6pm, Sun 10am–noon & 2.30–6.30pm; March, April, Nov & Dec Mon 2–6pm, Tues–Fri 9am–noon & 2–6pm, Sat 9am–noon; €3). This one specializes in labels – the cheeses underneath are mostly polystyrene.A statue in the town's main square honours Marie Harel, who, at the nearby village of CAMEMBERT, developed the original cheese early in the nineteenth century, promoting it with a skilful campaign that included sending free samples to Napoléon. Marie is confronted across the main street by what might be called the statue of the Unknown Cow. Vimoutiers is the venue of a market on Monday afternoons. Its tourist office, in the cheese museum (same hours; tel 02.33.39.30.29), has piles of information on local cheese-related attractions. Of its hotels, the central Soleil d'Or, 15 place Mackau (tel 02.33.39.07.15; under €30; closed mid-Feb to mid-March), has a reasonable €13 menu and a better €18 one. A short way south of Vimoutiers, en route to Camembert, the beautifully sited lake known as the Escale du Vitou offers everything you need for windsurfing, swimming and horse-riding, as well as its own new, comfortable, rural hotel, L' Escale du Vitou (tel 02.33.39.12.04; €30–40). There's also a clean and very cheap year-round campsite nearby, the two-star La Campière, 9 rue du 8-Mai (tel 02.33.39.18.86). Camembert itself, 3km southeast of Vimoutiers, is tiny, hilly and very rural, home to far more cows than humans. On one side of its little central square, the largest local cheese producers, La Ferme Président, run their own cheese museum (May daily 10am–12.30pm & 2–6pm; June–Aug 10am–12.30pm & 2–7pm; €3), where the forty-minute tour adds little to anything you may have learned in Vimoutiers. On the other side, the rival Le Relais du Camembert is a British-run cheese and souvenir stall with another ramshackle free cheese museum, open to no fixed hours, that has long been engaged in a bitter and much-publicized feud with the village mairie alongside.
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