Normandy

Normandy has a long coast and a genuine seaside tradition, but the Channel is cool. Even in August the water rarely gets above 18°C, and the swimming season runs from July to early September. The classic resorts are on the Côte Fleurie: Deauville, Trouville, Cabourg and Houlgate have wide sandy beaches, boardwalks and striped beach cabins. Further west, the beaches around Granville and down the Cotentin's west coast are quieter and wilder. Étretat and the Alabaster Coast are shingle beaches under chalk cliffs, better for walking than for swimming.

The tides shape every visit. At low tide the sea pulls back hundreds of metres and leaves huge flats, which are good for walking and digging but no use for a swim. Most visitors treat the beach as part of the trip, not the reason for it.

This is dairy and apple country. Camembert, Pont-l'Évêque, Livarot and Neufchâtel come from the region's farms, and the butter and crème fraîche make their way into almost every sauce. Apples become cider, poiré, pommeau and calvados. You can buy them straight from the farm along the Pays d'Auge cider route, and it is an easy, pleasant way to spend a day. On the coast there are oysters from Saint-Vaast and Isigny, scallops from Port-en-Bessin and Dieppe, and mussels cooked in cream and cider.

Small-town weekly markets and harbour-front seafood restaurants are the best of it, especially in Honfleur, Trouville and Granville. Rouen has the deepest restaurant scene and its own pressed duck. Range is narrower than in a big city, and international food is thin outside Rouen and Caen.

Normandy has several sights of world rank. Mont-Saint-Michel, the abbey on its tidal island, is the most famous. The D-Day landing beaches and their cemeteries and museums stretch from Utah Beach to Sword Beach, with the Caen Memorial as the main museum. In Bayeux, the eleventh-century tapestry hangs a short walk from the town's Gothic cathedral. Rouen has a cathedral Monet painted again and again, streets of half-timbered houses, the square where Joan of Arc was burned and a fine art museum.

There is more besides. Caen has William the Conqueror's castle and two abbeys. Le Havre is a UNESCO-listed concrete city rebuilt after the war, with a strong Impressionist collection. The ruined abbey at Jumièges and Monet's house and garden at Giverny round out the list. Bayeux or Caen make the best base.

Evenings here are mostly a long dinner and an early night. For bars, go to the two university cities. Rouen has bars and a few clubs in the streets around the cathedral and Place du Vieux-Marché. Caen has pubs and late bars around the Vaugueux quarter and the port. Deauville offers its casino and a smarter set of hotel bars in summer. The seaside towns get livelier on summer weekends, but the villages and countryside are quiet after dark.

The best scenery is on the coast. On the Alabaster Coast, white chalk cliffs and natural arches rise above the sea at Étretat and Fécamp, with a clifftop path running along the top. At the far tip of the Cotentin peninsula, Cap de la Hague and the Nez de Jobourg are wild, windy granite headlands. In the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, guided walks cross the sands at low tide, and seals haul out on the banks.

Inland is gentle bocage of hedged fields, orchards and half-timbered farms, good for cycling on long greenways. The Suisse Normande, around the Orne gorges, adds rock climbing, kayaking and hilly walks. There are no mountains, and the weather is mild, green and often damp.

Choose a base, and the rest of Normandy becomes a long list of outings. From Caen or Bayeux you can reach the harbour at Honfleur, the seaside resorts of Deauville and Trouville and the cider and cheese villages of the Pays d'Auge, such as Beuvron-en-Auge. Over on the Cotentin side, Barfleur and Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue are fishing ports, and Cherbourg has its harbour. Granville is a walled upper town on a rock.

Across the border into Brittany, Saint-Malo and Dinan are easy to add from the west. In summer, ferries cross from the Cotentin coast to Jersey. From Rouen it is about an hour to Giverny, and Paris is under two hours by train.

Normandy is easy with children, if not especially exciting. The wide sandy beaches of the Côte Fleurie and the west Cotentin are safe for building sandcastles, flying kites and exploring rock pools at low tide. Mont-Saint-Michel works well for older children, who like the ramparts and the tides. In Cherbourg, Cité de la Mer has aquariums and a real nuclear submarine to walk through. Near Lisieux, Cerza is a large safari-style zoo, and Festyland outside Caen is a small theme park.

Farm visits, pony rides and cycle paths fill the countryside. Self-catering cottages are easy to find, and the pace is calm. The drawbacks are cold water, changeable weather and longish drives between attractions. Some D-Day sites are sombre for young children.

A car makes Normandy easy, and the roads are good and generally uncrowded. Trains link Paris with Rouen, Caen, Bayeux, Le Havre, Cherbourg and Deauville-Trouville, and the old towns are pleasant to walk. Beyond the rail lines, things get harder. The landing beaches, the cider villages, the Étretat cliffs and Mont-Saint-Michel are poorly served by buses, so without a car you will depend on organised tours. Rouen to Mont-Saint-Michel is about three hours by road, so it is better to stay in two bases than to cover the region from one.

The things to take home are mostly edible: calvados, cider and pommeau bought from the farm, plus cheeses, salted-butter caramels and biscuits from the weekly markets. The old crafts survive in a few places. Alençon and Bayeux are known for lace, Villedieu-les-Poêles for copper pans and bells, and Rouen for faience pottery. Rouen's pedestrian streets have the widest range of shops. Deauville has a handful of upmarket fashion boutiques, and Honfleur is full of art galleries. Mont-Saint-Michel's single street is mostly souvenirs.

Normandy costs about what a French province costs, and there is a big difference between the famous spots and the rest. Countryside chambres d'hôtes, rented cottages and set lunch menus in market towns are reasonable. Many D-Day sites, cemeteries and beaches are free. Deauville, Honfleur and the area around Mont-Saint-Michel charge noticeably more, especially in July and August. Eating seafood on the harbour front adds up quickly. Since a car is usually needed, the cost of hiring one is part of the budget.

Rouen's opera house, the Théâtre des Arts, puts on opera, an orchestral season and ballet. Caen's theatre is the other main stage, and Le Havre and Caen both run good modern venues for theatre and contemporary music. The region's best-known music event is Jazz sous les Pommiers, a long-running spring jazz festival in the small town of Coutances. Summer also brings a large rock festival near Caen and concerts in abbeys and churches. Outside these, a visitor will find little to attend most evenings.

Normandy has a real tradition of seaside cures. Thalassotherapy centres, built around heated seawater pools and treatments, line the coast at Deauville, Cabourg, Ouistreham, Luc-sur-Mer and Granville. Inland, in the forests of the Orne, Bagnoles-de-l'Orne is a belle-époque thermal spa town with its own springs and lake, built around taking the waters.

Away from the spas, the slow pace is the attraction. Days pass with long lunches, walks through orchards and quiet evenings in a farmhouse or a small harbour town. August on the Côte Fleurie is the exception, when the resorts fill up with day trippers from Paris.