The perfect holiday in Normandy

There are two specific reasons for visiting Normandy this year. First, it is 80 years since the Allies stormed ashore here on D-Day to set about the Germans. Second, it is 150 years since the impressionists – Monet, Dégas, Renoir, Pissarro and the rest – put a rocket under the French academic art world with their 1874 fringe exhibition in Paris. These young fellows outraged their predecessors by painting outside in order, as an art historian once told me, “to make atmosphere and instantaneity palpable”.

The vast majority of this artistic upheaval happened in Normandy. The reasons are many: closeness to Paris, the popularity of the Norman seaside among Parisians rich enough to buy art – and the particular light of this stretch of coastline.

There are few better foreign places to rest the head and fill both soul and stomach, away from the clamour of contemporary imbecilities. A thousand years on from their boisterous heyday, the Normans have matured.

In consonance with a deep green, double cream landscape, Normandy is overwhelmingly tranquil, well fed and appealing. The locals are busy fishing and farming – all that deep-greenness favours butter, cream and cider – then eating the results. 

Meanwhile, towns and villages mix monumental, medieval and homely, some so dense with half-timbering that it’s like walking through a crossword puzzle. And all the while, the Seine meanders through while, further south, the countryside undulates with memories of Englishness. If Postman Pat were French, he’d be in the Auge valley south of Deauville.

Here is a 10-day road trip through some of the region’s 2024 highlights. 

Arrive early, on the overnight ferry from Newhaven. In 1942, another early-morning landing took place, for which Dieppe is now best known – that of 6,000 Allied troops, overwhelmingly Canadian, constituting the Operation Jubilee raid on August 19 1942. The operation went calamitously from the off. The Germans were ready and some 1,197 Allied men died, 900 of them Canadian. The story is told in the Dieppe Raid Memorial in the town’s former theatre – open daily until September 15 (dieppe-operationjubilee-19aout1942.fr; £3.40).

In the interim, you might (if it’s Saturday) stroll the great town market, which will lead to food lust and so to breakfast in the Place du Puits-Salé. In Dieppe’s days as France’s first seaside resort, big names – Turner, Proust, Monet, Oscar Wilde – gathered here. Next job: tackle the hill to the 14th-century castle up on the cliffs. It’s now a fine museum, with a world-beating collection of ivory. Whether elephants needed to die to supply the wherewithal for, say, model boats and tobacco graters is a question that might bother you a while.

Now wander the quays, before a two-course fish lunch at Le Turbot (sole and scallops are the stars) on Quai de la Cale for around £23, more wandering of the beach, then the military museum, aperitifs on the quays and dinner at L’Haumea on Quai Henri IV. It has a nice terrace, good cocktails, steak and fish, mains around £17. The bright, seaside Hotel de la Plage will bed you down pleasantly (laplage-dieppe.com; doubles from £76).

The rock’n’rolling coast

First, head 90 minutes down the rock’n’rolling coast, via Saint-Valéry-en-Caux, to Fécamp. A must-visit is the Palais Bénédictine distillery, which rises whopping and delirious, as if from the fevered imagination of Ludwig II. Enter. Say you are from Burnley. They will never know you are not. They have loved people from the northern mill town since elements of the East Lancashire Regiment were stationed nearby in the First World War. The lads developed a taste for the herby spirit, and took the taste home with them. These days, the Burnley Miners’ Social Club remains the world’s number one outlet for Benedictine, taken as “benny and hot water”. A visit and tasting comes in at £17. Lunch at the on-site bar, La Verrière, might include salmon gravlax in Benedictine for £12. 

Afterwards, move an hour inland to the wrecked seventh-century abbey of Jumièges. It was reckoned “the most beautiful ruin in France” by Victor Hugo. This summer, until September 29, Jumièges is invested by installation artist Laurent Grasso as part of the Impressionist festival.

On to Rouen, check into the Mercure Cathedrale in the city centre (all.accor.com; doubles from £87). Slip out to the St Maclou district where there’s life and noise, and Rotomagus has the best meat in town (mains from £16).

Saints and dinners

Rouen is a feel-good city. To start, visit the cathedral, painted some 30 times by Monet. “What I wanted to paint wasn’t the cathedral but the air between me and the cathedral,” he said. You will return tonight, at 10.30pm, when veteran US avant-gardiste Robert Wilson’s son-et-lumière will be bathing the cathedral facade in light and abstract images (nightly, to September 28; free). 

From there, along the rue du Gros Horloge to the Place du Vieux Marché where, in 1431, the English torched Joan of Arc. A statue marks the spot, a 1970s church rears behind. Meanwhile, the story of history’s most extraordinary teenage girl is brilliantly told – with all the bells and whistles of contemporary museography – across town at the Historial (historial-jeannedarc.fr; £9.50). 

Lunch at the Couronne, overlooking the Vieux Marché. France’s oldest restaurant, open since 1345. If you had bagged a window seat 593 years ago, you’d have had views of Joan’s execution (lacouronne-rouen.fr; three-course lunch £25).

The afternoon belongs to the Fine Arts Museum, where to the outstanding collection of Impressionist works the 2024 Impressionist festival is adding a David Hockney extravaganza born of his new life in Normandy and reaction to Impressionism. “Normandisme” runs until September 22, as does a show dedicated to Whistler (mbarouen.fr; free). Dine tonight down on the Seine-side quay at Gilles Tournadre’s Gill. It will be the best meal you’ve eaten for a while. Or since lunch, anyway. Go for pigeon à la rouennaise, the signature dish (gill.fr; mains from £34). 

A day with the Impressionists

It’s an hour from Rouen to the village where Monet, his wife and eight children lived for the last 43 years of his life. The house is as it was in the 1920s, while the most famous gardens in France exult with colour and life, water-lilies and maybe love. To say more would diminish the sense-smacking impact of your encounter with the place (fondation-monet.com; £9.50).

While in the village, make time for the Musée des Impressionnismes, which, until June 30, marks the Impressionist 150th anniversary with an Impressionists And The Sea show (mdig.fr; £11). Lunch at the ultra-convivial Les Canisses on the banks of the Seine, five miles away, at Le Goulet (canisses.com; two courses £23). 

When the time is right, head 30 minutes to Autheuil-Authouillet, where the Ferme des Isles along the River Eure enfolds you in a rural domain of stone-built integrity and neo-rustic imagination, of fields, paddocks and woods, of ducks, sheep and horses. Hostess Sophie Morel will do dinner if six people want it. Otherwise, follow her dinner recommendations (lafermedesisles.com; B&B doubles from £116). 

Begin the day with a drive through the Perche region, France’s version of the Cotswolds: a bucolic gentleness of hills, forest, orchards, hedged pastures heavy with horses, the whole a magnet for weekending Parisians seeking serenity. The finest town around is Mortagne-au-Perche, layered with centuries of stone-built self-sufficiency. It is also the French capital of black pudding. “Le boudin noir contains six times more iron than spinach,” says Jean-Claude Gotteri, grandmaster of the Brotherhood of the Knights of the Black Pudding. It should be free from our NHS. 

Tackle it for lunch at the Hotel du Tribunal (hotel-tribunal.fr; two-course lunch £17), then drive the hour to Bagnoles. A spa town, Bagnoles opens out around its lake as if it had itself taken a cure of wellness – like a much smaller Buxton coming at you from a rakish angle. There’s a casino and, overall, a raffish elegance. Drive just out of town into the forest to the Manoir-du-Lys for a Michelin-starred dinner and a manorial night (manoir-du-lys.fr; doubles from £133, three-course dinner £77).

Sleepy seaside stillness

Stroll Bagnoles, before an hour’s drive north to the upper Dives valley. The stillness is as sleepy as a Sunday afternoon. The sub-plot is anything but. This is the Falaise pocket where, 75 days after D-Day, 100,000 retreating German soldiers were encircled and battered by Allied forces. Some 10,000 died in what Ike called “one of the greatest killing grounds… of the war” The Montormel Memorial explains all (memorial-montormel.org; £5).

Continue to the Auge valley along lanes no thicker than a farmer’s forearm. They snake up and down hills, through pastures and woodland and into half-timbered villages – Crèvecoeur, Beuvron – as beguiling as a dairymaid’s smile. Life here moves at the speed of ripening camembert. Call in chez Drouin at Coudray-Rabut for the necessary introduction to calvados brandy (calvados-drouin.com). Proceed to seaside Trouville – Deauville’s harder-working neighbour – and Les 2 Villas hotel (les2villas.fr; doubles from £68). Dine at the June brasserie (restaurant-june-trouville.eatbu.com; three-course menu from £22).

Movie star names and memorials

Amble the beach and fish market at Trouville before a hop to Honfleur which, with half-timbered streets, paving setts, a storybook port and beaches, is one of the cutest corners of the region. It is also alive with memories of Impressionists (Monet, Boudin, Bazille). They favoured this coast for its new, seaside leisure motifs and rich parasol-toting Parisians who would buy their pictures. (Boudin’s The Beach At Trouville sums it up.)

Back to Trouville and across the River Touques to Deauville, Trouville’s nouveau-riche offspring. It is a protectorate of palace hotels and broad avenues, pumped-up Anglo-Norman villas, beaches galloped by race horses and beach huts bearing movie star names: the Normandy seaside, in short, filtered through the assumptions of the Parisian glitterati for whom it was planned in the mid-19th century. Lunch at the Etoile Des Mers fish shop and restaurant (etoile-des-mers-deauville.com; mains from around £18), then move on to Ouistreham.

At the eastern end of Sword Beach – itself the easternmost of the five landing beaches – Ouistreham now wears a jaunty seaside air.

Nip inland along the Orne River to the Pégasus Memorial Museum at Ranville. It brilliantly recounts the taking of the vital bridge in the early hours of D-Day by Major John Howard and glider-borne men of the Ox and Bucks (musee.memorial-pegasus.com; £7.50). Now directly to Bayeux and the Reine Mathilde hotel (hotel-bayeux-reinemathilde.fr; £73). Dine there, too (three-course menu £28).

Silence on the sand

These vast sands are vital. One can’t possibly recreate the terror or truly understand the extraordinary courage of young soldiers. But only in visiting might we grasp the scale of the enterprise, then stay silent to appreciate the respect and friendliness which rises to the surface on former battlefields.

From Sword to Utah beaches there are around 22 museums, plus cemeteries and memorials. It’s impossible to visit them all in one trip. So, hit the coast at Luc-sur-Mer, stop at Courseulles on Juno Beach, where the Juno Beach Centre tells the Canadian story (junobeach.org; £7). Next door, Ver-sur-Mer has the new (and impressive) British Normandy Memorial. This spring and summer it will be flanked by 1,475 metal silhouettes representing those killed under British command on June 6 1944. In all, the battle of Normandy killed 22,442 under British command: all the names are inscribed on the memorial (britishnormandymemorial.org; free).

Just along is Arromanches. Pick up a sandwich for lunch, then hike to the recently reworked Musée du Débarquement. It’s one of the best, not least for its insight into the Mulberry harbour crucial to invasion success. Elements of the 6,000-tonne blocks sunk to create the harbour remain visible off-shore (musee-arromanches.fr; £11). Then back to Bayeux, and dinner at Le Pommier (restaurantlepommier.com; three-course menu £24).

Bayeux & Mont Saint Michel

Day 9

Moving sites and a mesmerising monument

Up betimes to explore Bayeux. Start at the Second World War’s biggest Commonwealth cemetery where, on the tomb of Trooper AJ Cole, is written: “The dearest daddy and husband in the world. We will love you forever, darling.” This is the heart of the matter. It renders unnecessary a visit to the nearby Battle of Normandy museum.

Visit, instead, the 230ft Bayeux tapestry for its riveting needlework coverage of an earlier conflict (bayeuxmuseum.com; £10). Back to the beaches, and the monumental calm of the Colleville US cemetery above Omaha beach, resting place of 9,387 young Americans (abmc.gov; free). Further on, the Pointe du Hoc is where 225 US Rangers scaled the sheer 115ft promontory, only to find the enemy big guns – their target – had been dismantled and moved inland. Only 90 Rangers escaped unscathed (bayeux-bessin-tourisme.com; free)

Lunch at La Trinquette at Grandcamp-Maisy (restaurant-la-trinquette.com; three-course menu £28) and then travel 90 minutes to the Mont Saint Michel, the most mesmerising monument in France. From the bay, it rises magnificent, as if borne from a more sublime dimension. You park, take the shuttle bus, visit. Beyond ramparts rise the slab-sided abbey and vast Romanesque church on top. Imagine Westminster Abbey wrapped around a rock. Once away, you’ll find it hard to believe that anything quite so majestic exists.

Round the corner to Bacilly and the Château de Chantore, whose extreme elegance, seam of nobility and glorious grounds co-opt you into the ancien régime (chateaudechantore.com; B&B doubles from £197). Dine nearby in Genêts, at La Pause des Genêts (lapausedesgenets.fr; mains from £19).

Barneville-Carteret and Cherbourg

Days 10 & 11

Edwardian atmosphere

Up the western coast of the Cotentin peninsula, via Granville to Barneville-Carteret, lies a resort of Edwardian atmosphere where bustles and boaters would not go amiss. Lunch on the terrace at Le Noroit (three-course menu £13). Continue north along lanes which burst from be-hedged farmland to a seaside alternating an infinity of sand with edges rising rocky and ragged.

Top out at the Nez de Jobourg cliffs, 420ft above muscular seas trying to pound the peninsula into submission. Roll into Cherbourg and the Ambassadeur Hotel (ambassadeurhotel.com; doubles from £52). It’s your last night, so push out le bateau at the Michelin-starred Le Pily overlooking the harbour (restaurant-le-pily.com; four-course menu £57).

Homeward bound

Depending on the hour of the ferry to Poole or Portsmouth, either simply stroll the most heroic of Channel ports – flattened during the battle of Normandy, later vital to Allied success. Or, if you’ve three or four hours, take in France’s best sea centre. The Cité de la Mer is full of fish, a nuclear sub, the recreation of a departure hall for US-bound emigrants – and memories of the Titanic, which made its penultimate stop here. Some 280 passengers embarked, while 24 got off. I trust they joined together to fund a Chapel of Thanksgiving (citedelamer.com; £16).

When to go

Normandy is an any-time destination, with weather much like the south of England. This year, the D-Day Festival Normandy runs events throughout June and the Normandy Impressionist Festival runs until September 22.  

For a purely D-Day-related trip, try Leger Holidays’ (01709 787463; leger.co.uk) first-rate guided coach tours. Five-day tour from £609 per person. 

Pricier but more luxurious – including time in a château hotel – is Kirker’s (020 7593 2288; kirkerholidays.com) Tailor-Made Normandy self-drive trip taking in both D-Day sites and Impressionist-related land- and sea-scapes, seven nights from £1,998 per person.

For Second World War matters, go to Anthony Beevor’s D-Day: The Battle For Normandy. The Normandy classic is Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, but that might be a bit of a stretch as a holiday read. Thrillers like Aaron Elkins’s Old Bones set on the Mont Saint Michel or, especially, Black Water Lilies dealing with death in Monet’s garden by French best-seller Michel Bussi should hold your attention.