Normandy, Brittany & the Best of the North_ With Paris (Fodor's) - Fodor's [8]
In some hostels you aren’t allowed to be in your room during the day, and there may be a curfew at night. Nevertheless, hostels provide a sense of community, with public rooms where travelers often gather to share stories.
For resources and booking information, see the Travel Smart chapter.
Previous Chapter | Beginning of Chapter | Next Chapter | Contents
Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Contents
Keep in mind that French schoolchildren have five holidays a year: one week at the end of October, two weeks at Christmas, two weeks in February, two weeks in April, and the two full months of July and August. During these times travel in France is truly at its peak season, which means that prices are higher, highways are busier, the queues for museums are long, and transportation is at its most expensive. Your best bet for quality and calm is to travel off-season. June and September are the best months to be in France, as both are free of the midsummer crowds. Try to avoid the second half of July and all of August, when almost everyone in France goes on vacation. July and August in southern France can be stifling. Paris can be stuffy and uncomfortable in August. Many restaurants, theaters, and small shops close, but enough stay open these days to make a low-key, unhurried visit a pleasure. Anytime between March and November will offer you a good chance to soak up the sun on the Côte d’Azur. If Paris and the Loire are among your priorities, remember that the weather is unappealing before Easter. If you’re dreaming of Paris in the springtime, May is your best bet, not rainy April. But the capital remains a joy during midwinter, with plenty of things to see and do.
Previous Chapter | Beginning of Chapter | Next Chapter | Contents
Main Table of Contents
Introducing Normandy
Normandy Planner
Getting Around
Upper Normandy
Honfleur to Mont-St-Michel
Normandy In Depth
Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Contents
Top Reasons to Go | Getting Oriented
Updated by Jennifer Ladonne
The maritime Garden of Eden called Normandy sprawls out over France’s northwestern corner in a shape roughly resembling a segment of a jigsaw puzzle. Due to its geographic position, this region is blessed with a stunning natural beauty, one that once inspired Maupassant and Monet. Little wonder today’s sightseers pack into colorful Rouen, seaside Honfleur, and magnificent and magical Mont-St-Michel.
Happily, it is easy to escape all those travelers. Simply lose yourself along Normandy’s spectacular cliff-lined coast and in the green spaces inland, where the closest thing to a crowd is a farmer with his herd of brown-and-white cows. But whatever road you turn down the region’s time-stained history is there to enchant and fascinate. Say the name “Normandy,” and which Channel-side scenario comes to mind?
Are you reminded of the dramatic silhouette of Mont-St-Michel looming above the tidal flats, its cobbles echoing with the footfalls of medieval scholars? Or do you think of iron-gray convoys massing silently at dawn, lowering tailgates to pour troops of young Allied infantrymen into the line of German machine-gun fire? At Omaha Beach you may marvel at the odds faced by the handful of soldiers who in June 1944 were able to rise above the waterfront carnage to capture the cliff-top battery, paving the way for the Allies’ reconquest of Europe.
Perhaps you think of Joan of Arc—imprisoned by the English yet burned at the Rouen stake by the Church she believed in? In a modern church you may light a candle on the very spot where, in 1431, the Maiden Warrior sizzled into history at the hands of panicky politicians and time-serving clerics: a dark deed that marked a turning point in the Hundred Years’ War. The destinies of England and Normandy have been intertwined ever since William, Duke of Normandy, insisted that King Edward the Confessor had promised