The San Salvador Large model of a galleon presented on its Ber - This ship is said to have run aground in the 16th century off the Normandy coast of Calvados, giving the department its name, but all this was a legend... Beautifully crafted by a professional modeler in the second half of the 20th century, in wood, rope and fabric from the Honfleur region. dimensions Height 230 cm length 260 cm very good condition sold by designation A little history - Rochers du Calvados - (source Wikipedia) The Rocher du Calvados is a rocky shoal located off the coast of the département of Calvados (Basse-Normandie) to which it gave its name. Location The rock lies off the Bessin coast, not far from the communes of Arromanches-les-Bains and Asnelles. It can only be seen at high tide. Sixteenth-century maps show a long rocky shoal some ten kilometers long. It represented a danger to navigation. Today, the rock is no more than an islet (400 m by 1 km). Etymology The origin of the name "Calvados" is hypothetical. For a long time, it was thought to be a Spanish word recalling the sinking of a ship, the San Salvador, as part of the invincible Armada in 1588. This tradition proved very popular, and the inlet between the coast and the rock was even referred to as the "Spanish Fosse". Linguistics professor René Lepelley offers another explanation. The etymology of the name is calva-dorsa, meaning bald or bare backs or heights (dorsa). However, according to the professor, the word did not originally refer to the rock, but to an area of the coast devoid of shrubs. Indeed, a 17th-century map shows that Calvados referred to two sections of the cliff, stretching for 17 km between Sainte-Honorine-des-Pertes and Saint-Côme-de-Fresné. By extension, the name of this coastal area was passed on to the offshore rock.