A curated collection of useful or interesting articles and blogs about the area around our chaumiere in Normandy. And here is a list of blogs about France and Normandy.

Normandy Prepares for 75th Anniversary of D-Day Landings – Guardian 22 April 2019.

A Short Break Built on Concrete Chic – Guardian 14 May 2017. Visit hip Le Havre. 

Readers’ Travel Tips: Normandy – Guardian, 16 July 2012. Tips from Guardian readers including Christian Dior’s home and a great creperie.

Normandy Travel Guide – Telegraph, 26 July 2012. Travel writer and Normandy expert Greg Ward recommends restaurants, hotels, beaches and more.

Exploring Normandy’s stylish seaside town: The grand resort loved by posh Parisians that’s top class for families too, 7 May 2018. Deauville and Trouville for families.

Where to travel on holiday in 2012 – Telegraph, 30 December 2011. Normandy comes first on the  Telegraph’s list of places to visit in 2012. “There’s greater variety in this wonderful region than in anywhere else I can think of” says the writer. “It has some of the best beaches and most beautiful countryside in France. There are sophisticated resorts (Deauville and Trouville) scenic ports (Honfleur and Barfleur) and seaside villages (Etretat and Pourville) and there is the wild and rocky west coast of the Cotentin Peninsula. There are world-class art galleries in Rouen and Le Havre, and excellent ones in Dieppe and Honfleur – not to mention Monet’s garden and a string of other associations with the Impressionists. There are great medieval churches and cathedrals in Fécamp, Rouen and Mont St Michel. And I haven’t even mentioned the Bayeux Tapestry, the cheese, the cider, the Calvados, the golf, the sailing, William the Conqueror, the Normandy landings…If you are searching for value and variety in 2012, look no further.”

Honfleur, France: a cultural guide – Telegraph, 15 November 2011. An inside track on the museums and hotels of Honfleur – and what to avoid.

Visiting France’s Côte Fleurie – NYTimes.com, 8 August 2010. Accurate piece on the “quiet glamor” of the Côte Fleurie, from Deauville (“a Gallic answer to East Hampton”) with its American film festival and wide sandy beaches, to the charming restaurants of Honfleur, the area’s artistic history as home to the Impressionists, and its celebrity residents, casinos and racing. Cassis sorbet in Deauville is the best I’ve ever tasted.

So You Want to Learn to Cook in France, 22 January 2013. American pastry chef and Paris resident David Lebovitz advises on navigating culinary schools in France. For the best, you’ll need to know French, but there are many other options including Susan Hermann Loomis’s residential classes at her home in Normandy.

Normandy: La France profonde – The Sunday Times, 13 August 2006. Stephen Clarke waxes lyrical about the classical gardens, abbeys and appley alcohol of the Seine valley.

France holidays: Normandy vs Brittany – Telegraph, 27 June 2011. I don’t agree with Anthony Peregrine’s conclusion: Normandy beats Brittany every time in my book. Still, a useful article for its coverage of beaches, history, landscape and food & drink.

Gardens to Visit in Normandy (Orne & Eure), 16 August 2010. Nice blog post listing the best gardens to visit in south-east Normandy.

Dispatch | On the Normandy Coast – NYTimes.com, 27 July 2010. Etretat is a wonderful day trip. Stoney beach, brisk walks, cliffs memorialised by Monet.

Eurofile | The Paris Plage. The New York Times neatly deconstructs the social signals and relative merits of Le Touquet and Deauville.

Guide2Normandy covers everything you could want to know about Normandy and more, including local news, events, property, restaurants, holidays. There’s an excellent community forums that digs into specialist subjects from birding to Normandy recipes to entrepreneurs. Operated by an ex-lawyer who worked in Paris and now lives in rural Normandy.

My French Country Home–Exactly what it says on the tin. Life in a French country home, with a focus on interior design and shopping at brocantes. Opportunities to buy from the owner’s shabby chic boutique or even go brocante shopping with her. Warning: jealousy-inducing lifestyle alert.

Normandy Travel Guide from Lonely Planet. Fairly bare bones as the quality content is kept behind a paywall, still some helpful travel and historical information as well as Lonely Planet’s favourites – Rouen comes out top.