France Travel Guide:

Normandy Overview

Normandy, France offers a diverse blend of landscapes and attractions, but most travelers are drawn to the 400 miles of beautiful coastline that hugs the English Channel or Le Manche as it is known in France.  The coast of Normandy is equally attractive on calm, sunny days or when the weather turns stormy.  The best to visit is from late spring to early fall.  Be prepared for rain in any season. 

Normandy, France (see map) is defined by two administrative areas called Upper Normandy (Haute-Normandie) and Lower Normandy (Basse-Normandie).  Haute-Normandy includes the départments (France’s main administrative units) of Eure and the Seine-Maritime.  Basse-Normandy is comprised of the départments of Calvados, Manche and Orne. The Seine winds through on its way to the Channel (Le Manche), hugging Rouen and entering the ocean near Le Harve.

France's  two "Normandys" extend from Le Tréport and Eu in the north to Mt. St. Michel and Alencon in the south.  Paris is approximately 85 miles east of Rouen, which is approximately 160 miles northeast of Mont St. Michel  (approximately 200 miles west-southwest of Paris).

Normandy's major cities are: Rouen (the capital of upper Normandy, population 400,000), Le Harve (population 250,000), Caen (the capital of lower Normandy, population 200,000) and Cherbourg (population 90,000).

In the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Normandy’s coastal areas attracted the gentry. Many elegant, exclusive beach resorts and casinos sprung-up in response to this interest.  Today, most of these areas are past their prime but remain attractive to some travelers.

Our overview of the D-Day Invasion is accompanied by a map that shows the location of the featured World War II sites.  The locations, marked with red  starburst symbols, are  clickable hotspots that will take you to the section of our Normandy Guide section covering that location.  We have repeated the map (at a smaller size) on every page of the D-Day section  to help you find the information on the places you find interesting.  In addition, we have added a Google map, overlaid with the destinations we describe in Normandy, so you can more easily calculate distances and routes between locations.  Links to the routable map of Normandy are shown by this symbol .

There are eight pages in our Normandy Guide.  Clicking the link at the end of each page will take you to the next page in the sequence.  If you are looking for a particular place, use the links above and to the left.

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