Normandy offers a surprising variety of countryside and coastline. The coastline is sometimes wild and rugged, but the countryside with it's half timbered houses surrounded by apple orchards , fresh undulating landscape, and forests of beech and pine, is a haven of peace and serenity. The name Normandy is derived from the Norsemen, Vikings who came here in their wooden-prowed boats and settled between 800 AD and 911 AD when a Viking, Rollo, became the first Duke of Normandy.

The Eastern coastline is known as the Alabaster Coast due to its striking chalk cliffs, higher then 100 meters in places, and extends from Le Treport to Le Havre. Many artists have painted this part of the Normandy coast; the unusual formation, known as the Elephant’s Trunk at Etretat, is known the world over due to Monet’s paintings of it. Nearby Fecamp is renowned not only for its cliffs but also the Benedictine Monastery that produces the drink of the same name (tours available). At the mouth of the Seine is Le Havre, a busy port that houses a great modern museum, Musee Malraux. On the opposite side of the Seine Estuary is the lovely old fishing port of Honfleur with its tall houses. From Honfleur on 15 March, 1603, Samuel de Champlain made his first expedition to Canada to “see the country, and what the colonizers might accomplish there.” Thus began the colonization of Canada by the French.

From the mouth of the Seine westwards to the Orne is the Floral Coast. Here are the famous beaches and resorts such as Trouville and fashionable Deuville famed for its Casino, Horse Racing, and the American Film Festival. These are the seaside resorts that are sometimes called the 21st arrondissement of Paris being only about 1 _ hrs from Paris. A lovely resort is Cabourg where Proust would stay at the Grand Hotel, still with its authentic Belle Epoque ambience. His novel ‘Within a Budding Grove’ (part of the cycle ‘Remembrance of Things Past’) is a vivid portrayal of life at a seaside resort at the turn if the 20th century and of the customs of Cabourg, called ‘Balbec’ in the novel.

South-east of Rouen, is the pretty village of Lyon-le-Foret in the Foret de Lyons, the favorite hunting ground of the Dukes of Normandy and the largest beechwood in Europe. The village is located around the remains of the castle where Henry the first of England died. Maurice Ravel wrote some of his finest music in ‘Le Fresne’, one of the old mansions you can visit. Other designated beautiful and historic villages in Normandy are Barfleur, Beuvron en Auge, Saint Ceneri Le Gerei, Gerberoy, Argentan, Domfront, Granville, Eu, Forges-les-Eaux, Pont-Audemer and more.

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