beaches in normandy
 

We are going to be spending seven days in paris in may 2002. We want to spend a couple of days at a beach. Are any of the beaches in the northwest part of the country (normandy,etc.) used for swimming and sunbathing or are they just historical landmarks? I know this may sound like a silly question but I have spent DAYS trying to find this out and haven't been able to.

A few summers ago we spent enjoyable few days at Deauville. Its beach is rather upmarket, with pavillions and classy beach restaurants. Across the estuary there is the popular resort of Trouville, full of families and nice sand.<BR>There are more humble, slightly faded resorts west of Deauville like Villers, Houlgate and Cabourg. Not places to linger, but perfectly adequate for beach activities. Can be rather bleak and windswept, even in August.<BR>In May it will probably not be warm enough for sunbathing, let alone swimming in the sea.

I agree with Alec. I was in Deuville last August. It is definitely not beach weather. You can get historical weather on weatherunderground.com. So that may be of help.

We were in Bayeux in late June this year and went to Omaha Beach for the historical aspects rather than sunbathing. People were playing soccer on the beach but I suspect based on the air temperature, swimming would have been out of the question. Fog would roll in dropping the temperature which was already somewhat chilly. I enjoyed the area but it is not in my opinion a beach resort by any measure. Go there for the history.

Normandy is roughly the same latitude as Vancouver and it is not beach weather in May in Vancouver. There is usually a good breeze coming off the water so take something warm with you. I was there in early April and the temp was only around 50 and rainy.