One night's stay: Etretat or Honfleur?
 

I just bought tix (actually used ff miles for 1 ticket) for my husband and me for May, '05 for 10 days (!); plan to spend 3-4 in Paris, the rest in Normandy, where we've never been, except for Rouen. Anyway, I'm wondering where to spend one night before we drive farther west to the D-Day area; Honfleur and Etretat both look like places I'd like to visit. Anyone have opinions? Perhaps Etretat might be better for just a few hours, then on to spending the night in Honfleur? I'll probably be asking lots of questions about Normandy in the next few months. Thank you!

I love Honfleur. Stop in Trouvuille for lunch at the Brasserie Les Vapeurs., for the best Moules with creme. Trouville is between Honfleur and Deauville.

Etretat does not have the tourist-magnet "pizzazz" of Honfleur, but we enjoyed it greatly. See my previous posts on Villa Bligny, and an extraordinary restaurant (same ownewrship, if I recall correctly) - - something like "l'Huitriere".

And those cliffs - - still very awe-inspiring.

Best wishes,

Rex

I would visit Etretat and stay in Honfleur. Honfleur is a charming fishing village with some very interesting architecture. Be sure and check out the town church built entirely in wood by shipbuilders. Its downtown is compact and easy to walk through with many shops and restaurants.

Downtown Etretat on the other hand is rather plain. More like a anywhere France village. I dont recall anything of great interest in the downtown area. The cliffs are the main attraction there and they are spectacular and worth the trip.

Have a great trip!

One day I want to visit Etreta. Somehow I remember one Arsene Lupin episode that I read when I was a child, where a boy - Lupin's son ? - was inprisoned in "l'Aiguille Creuse" of Etretat.

The following is for a photo of Etretat I found the other day by chance (without l'aiguille creuse).

http://www.worldisround.com/articles/60829/photo17.html

Honfleur looked a nice port town to stay. I just stayed there for a few hours for lunch + a brief visit before heading for Houlgate where we had a hotel reservation, 10 years ago.

Stop and look around in Etretat, but stay in Honfleur and soak up the beauty of that little picturesque port.

Etretat is great for a visit and lunch on the beach, and afterwards a walk up the cliffs, but I agree, stay in Honfleur.

If you are interested, Fecamp is right up the road from Etretat, and you can tour their Monastery where they make the B&B. ((b))

I enjoyed staying in Etretat; it was low-key, and lovely to enjoy the beach early in the day, when you can have the entire place to oneself.

Stayed at a pleasant enough hotel & restaurant called Le Donjon; I'd stay there again.

We stayed in Honfleur.While quaint we were not impressed that the water view we had from the Ferme St. Simeon a very expensive hotel was ruined by a refinery in the distance.It was very disappointing. A short stop in Honfleur is ok but we wish we had stayed in Deauville.

We ate at St Simon but did not stay there the first visit. Found it too stuffy but it was fun eating besides the water where the atmosphere is casual and fun.
Kappa: There's a film out about, and titled by his name Arsène Lupin.
Also, A book I read has been translated to the screen, called The long Engagement, stars Audrey Tatou.

Thanks, all! Sounds as though Etretat (and Fecamp) is definitely worth the out-of-the-way trip but Honfleur would be the better place to stay overnight.

Would this make sense, time-wise: pick up car at CDG, drive to Les Andelys for an overnight; next day drive to Etretat,Fecamp for few hours, then over to Honfleur for the night?

Several questions: leave CDG at what hour? and go to les Andelys - - but not Giverny (or have you already been there before)?

A visit to Chateau Gaillard could easily take 2 hours, depending on how much you like to hike around this very moving and haunting site. And I think you would want to start no sooner than when the morning dew has mostly disappeared. In May, to get to Honfleur with full sunlight remaining, that leaves you say... 6 hours. You will fill that quite completely, in my opinion, with 1.5-2 hours at Fecamp and maybe just as much in Etretat - - plus your driving time.

It's a very packed day - - unless you are visiting Chateau Gaillard on the day you get TO les Andelys - - but do-able.

We have stayed over in both places but agree with those who suggest a visit to Etretat but an overnight in Honfleur.
It's really special to have some time in that charming town without the hoards that decend upon it from the tour buses.

We have returned to Honfleur 5 or 6 times and will continue to do so. We will probably never return to Etretat, though it was interesting to see once.

An overnight in Les Andelys would be a fine thing to do--we very much enjoyed our stay and found that an hour was enough time to see Château Gaillard and the village.

We had thought of visiting Etretat and Fécamp but decided that it would make for a pretty long day by the time we got there, spent some time (walking out to the cliffs is not a short jaunt), and then drove to Honfleur via Trouville and Deauville.

If you stay at Les Andelys you can visit assorted abbeys on your way toward the coast (especially Jumièges and Le Bec Hellouin) and have a good half day in Honfleur, which is well worth the time.

In Honfleur we stayed at the hotel L'Ecrin, a few blocks above the port and a pleasant spot. The owner is kind and helpful--I left a pricey scarf there, and he found it and sent it on to me without asking for any payment in advance.

Underhill, I'd like to hear your impression on renting car at CDG to begin this excursion; I know your report said it wasn't bad, but seems like folks on here (other threads) are recommending taking the train to Caen, then renting. We do not have a good history :-) of picking up and returning cars, and therefore, tend to prefer to do it in smaller towns. However, we plan to do Paris at end of this trip and don't want to "waste time" going to Paris, then taking train north again. But might be better than having a hard time getting out of CDG in a rental! Any thoughts?

Rex, our flight gets in around 10:00 a.m.

Picking up the car at CDG was actually fairly straightforward. We had reserved ahead with AutoEurope, and the actual rental was with Europecar--it has a counter downstairs at Terminal 2. The cars are just out the back door in a large parking lot; access to the road is simple, and once on that you just head for the périphérique and Rouen. Most of the drive to Les Andelys is on the autoroute: no problems there. The drive to Les Andelys took about 2 hours, as I recall, with a quick stop for lunch along the autoroute.

Underhill, I'm focusing on your words "fairly straightforward" and "simple"! We'll probably rent thru AutoEurope, also, so it should be the same drill. Although, I think USAirways (IF still aloft!) flies into Terminal 1.

Thanks for the additional info; I've been using your trip reports for ideas!

We also always pick up our Eurocar at
CDG no matter what direction we are going. Just be sure before you leave the lot, you know how every little thing
works. How to work the windshield wipers should it rain and so on. These cars differ so much sometimes.

Good point,Mimi. I remember visiting my daughter when she spent her jr. year in France in 1990, and we rented a car that had a choke, something long gone in the USA. It took us a little while to figure that one out!

Grandmere,

You might consider doing what my husband did: go to expedia.com and pull up the maps for the area around CDG, then the more detailed ones--he printed them out for us to take with, and they were very helpful in navigating from CDG to the autoroute for Rouen. If you have any trouble finding them, let me know and I can have him get in touch with you.

At the CDG Eurocar, at pick-up, we ask for the easiest way out to our direction and they give us a map and draw lines on it for us to follow.

You will love Normandy! Please consider a guided tour by Battlebus. I think their website is www.battlebus.com and you can reserve a tour online and pay (IN CASH, no credit cards) once you get there. They meet up in Bayeaux and take you in a van that seats 9 people. Gerdt, our Belgian tour guide studied tourism in school and did his dissertation on the invasion of Normandy and was truly an expert on the war and the sites we visited. We would not have enjoyed the trip in the same way without that tour. I was amazed at the things he could point out that we would have missed otherwise. It was rather funny that he kind of ended up as a pied piper of sorts as people not in our group started following us around so they could hear him.

I stayed two nights in Honfleur and completely loved the town. Some of my best pictures from a month long trip were of the boat harbor there. I loved the wooden church where a wedding was about to take place as I walked by. I know there are a couple of hotels that people like- check out tripadvisor.com and also the recs here on fodors.com. I wasn't thrilled with my very smoky and somewhat expensive room at the Hotel de Cheval Blanc and would not stay there again.

Another place I stayed in Normandy and would stay again can be found at www.ranconniere.fr where the evening meal was very good. I believe part of the farmhouse was started in the 1100s. It is very close to the tiny town of Arromanches which played a major role after DDay.

I had a terrible time returning the rental car to CDG. I couldn't find the rental car signage and drove around and around until I couldn't seem to go anywhere at all. I ended up in an employee area of the airport and became totally confused. I finally went the wrong way on a street and found the parking area for terminal two where there was a little satellite area for car returns.

I also rented through Europecar via Auto Europe and that was a good way to go. No problems at all with those two companies.

Underhill, I will try to get the Expedia maps, and if I have trouble, I will take your offer of your husband's help; thank you very much!
Mimi, I will also do what you suggested; never too much info when it comes to driving in a strange place!

Amwosu, I was sorry to read what you wrote about Cheval Blanc, b/c that was going to be my pick for Honfleur. On the other hand, it's good to know so that I can look elsewhere. It does have good reviews on Trip Advisor. The only one with better reviews is Hotel des Loges; do you know anything about it?

Your comment about difficulty returning car to CDG just confirmed what I already know about my husband and me and returning cars to European airports; I thought we were truly going to miss our plane in Frankfurt years ago, just trying to get rid of the rental car! I think we will return the car somewhere in Normandy and take the train into Paris.

Thanks, everyone, for your help! Any more advice, info, etc., is certainly welcome!

Amwosu, www.battlebus.com did not find the site; any other thoughts about it?

Also, was the location of La Ranconniere very convenient? I had thought we would stay in Bayeux where we could walk to things, but the Ferme looks like a very charming and relaxing place to stay. Any problems finding parking in Bayeux?
Normandy is a completely new area for me, so, at the risk of sounding OCD, I have lots of questions about this trip! :-)

My two cents: My daughter,husband and I stayed at the Cheval Blanc last year and loved the place. Our room was overlooking the water and the garden across the street.The hotel staff were very nice and helpful too.I remember the price of the place being very reasonable compared to other places in town? I would caution you about the drive from CDG to Rouen after you have gotten off a long flight from the US. Most flights land about Paris morning rush hour and if your car is not an automatic its a long haul stopping and starting to get out of the city-very hard after being up all night without sleep.(We rented from Hertz and it was a nightmare-4 different cars in 5 days. Our first car that we got from CDG caught on fire as we were in the tunnel on the ring road around Paris-but thats another story.........)Anyway,be sure to read all the past stories about Normandy and the surrounding area. What a wonderful place to visit-enjoy!

Apologies...the website is www.battlebus.fr instead of .com.

I don't know anything about the hotels in Honfleur. Like you, I wanted one with a view of the water but the Cheval Blanc views weren't even good. Kind of misleading on the website which boasts of waterviews. Sure, but not of the cute little harbor. Actually looking out onto ugly stuff in the channel. Even that view was obscured by a tree. Next time I wouldn't bother trying to get one on the harbor at all. There were some cute ones away from the harbor on other streets. THere was a nice looking one across from the old church made of wood and it was in a lovely area. I could wander that town taking pictures for a long time. Flower boxes and half timbered buildings everywhere. I have some pictures of Honfleur on my weblog at www.mrswalkergoestofrance.blogspot.com if you want to wade through the other pictures to find them.

La Ranconniere is restive and relaxing and if I remember correctly about 15 miles from Bayeaux. But do a michelin map thingie search between Crepon and Bayeaux just to be sure. The problem with La Ranconniere is that if you do a Battlebus tour out of Bayeaux you have to get up pretty early to get to the meeting place in Bayeaux. I was a bit stressed about finding the meeting spot (although they do have downloadable info on the website) and finding a parking space. There wasn't any place to park near the meeting spot, I parked on the street in town and walked a few blocks. The parking in the middle of Bayeaux was all pay parking and the number of hours you could stay parked was limited.

I found Bayeaux to be without charm and very touristy and was glad to be staying at La Ranconniere instead. But if you stay in Bayeaux you will be able to walk to places of interest in town rather than driving to them.

The Absinthe house may be by the water.

Dutyfree, wish we could avoid going thru Rouen altogether, but at least we will be staying the first night in Les Andelys (acccording to my current plan, still a work in progress!), not terribly far from CDG. I'm not sure how super we will even feel the next day taking on Rouen, but at least we should have gotten a good night's sleep. We've always rented standard transmission cars but just might splurge and do an automatic this trip to make things a bit easier.

Mrs. Walker, I enjoyed seeing your pictures! I would really like to be going to Annecy this trip, but not enough time w/o a lot of running around, so that for another time! As wonderful as La Ranconniere looks, I think we'd be better off in Bayeux where we could walk places and not have to worry about parking the car.

Thank, everyone, again!

At least one large hotel (perhaps the Mercure) is right across the road from the ocean.

You might want to think about staying in Trouville as an alternative--more hotels down near the sea. And to be honest, I didn't think the Manche was as view-worthy as the Mediterranean.

Actually, rather than being by the water, necessarily, I want to be someplace where we can walk to things w/o having to driving. A central location, with charm, is what I'm looking for! And reasonable (and clean!)

Also, Underhill, does one have to drive for a long time on the peripherique (and almost into Paris?) before heading north to Les Andelys? That's the way it looks on the map- yikes!

Grandmere, Elizebeth Bourgeois cookbook arrived today, nice small size , beautiful photos.
Her grand-daughters name I love, "Chiara."

The driver remembers that it took only about 1/2 hour before we got to the autoroute.

If you want to be within walking distance of the major sights of Honfleur I'd strongly recommend L'Ecrin. It's a slightly eccentric place in terms of OTT décor, but charming withal and with extremely nice personnel. There's a bakery just down the street if you want to have breakfast out (the continental is 10€ and includes yogurt), and then about 2 blocks down to the port. The hotel is set at the back of a walled courtyard, locked at night and so very safe for cars. There are rooms in the main house and the unconnected wings; the latter are on ground level.

Is the Eliz. Bourgeois book available on Amazon, Mimi?

I'll check out l'Ecrin, Underhill. Thanks for your ongoing help!

yes, that's where I bought a used copy(like new!!) for a few dollars.

You're welcome, Grandmere. The scarf I left behind at L'Ecrin just arrived, thanks to the nice owner.

ttt

We stayed in L'Absinthe. There's no water view but you are right at the harbor. We had the top floor.