Deauville and Trouville: A Lovely Pair

Two sweet towns on the Atlantic coast. Normandy at its finest.

Deauville is the vacation home of Parisians looking to escape the hustle of their city, and they flock there in droves to relax, and somehow still manage to look miserable, even here in Normandy. Trust me, it’s like giving juicy Normandy apples to someone with no teeth. What a waste, right?

I know this area from the reality I grew up in. My beloved grandmother, whom everyone who knows me also knows through the many stories I’ve told about her. My grandmother, Grandma Jenny (we called her Bubba, or Babouchka), had a lovely apartment in Deauville. Just a minute’s walk from the beach promenade.

Thanks to her, I can tell you that Deauville is a quiet, elegant town. It has a sweet charm, and it’s simply a pleasure to wander around it and its twin, Trouville.

It has a beach that I’m addicted to. One that heals me each time from all the storms and upheavals, and leaves me calm and happy.

And thanks to her, I can tell you that whenever my heart or body signals that something isn’t quite right, my soul almost automatically starts thinking about how and when to get back to Deauville, to take a breath and clear my head.

Where to stay in Deauville

Before I start telling you about everything there is to do in Deauville, let me recommend you stay there, even if just for a few days. I’m not saying this only because I have a lovely vacation home there, but because it’s a wonderful base for day trips across the whole western part of Normandy.

So if, after reading this article, you’re convinced that Deauville is the perfect base for a full trip, I recommend you check out Recommended hotels and vacation rentals in Deauville and pick yourself a great hotel or apartment.

Attractions in Deauville

The beach at Deauville

The beach is, in my opinion, the most important thing in this category, even though the sea isn’t exactly an attraction. But it is, when it’s a beach like this one.

People come to this beach with their horses, strolling calmly along the waterline or galloping together in groups, and the sight is so good for the soul.

The waterline on Normandy’s beaches is constantly changing, just like at Mont-Saint-Michel, where the tides are significant. That means sometimes you’ll see the water right up against the promenade, and other times you’ll have to walk for kilometers to reach the waterline, but I can promise you that in any form, this beach is simply stunning.

When the sea retreats, you can see that huge puddles remain on the beach in different spots, and the sea simply creates a shifting display of oceanic charm, with sandpipers and seashells. By the way, if you search Google for “Deauville Marais,” you’ll find a site with the tide times for the beach.

If you walk to the end of the beach promenade toward Trouville, you’ll find Deauville’s beautiful harbor, which is lovely to wander around and photograph. I always leave there with a few pictures I love.

In July and August there are lifeguards on the beach, and you can rent umbrellas and chairs. Swimming in the summer is wonderful, and a feeling of freedom fills the air everywhere.

Horses

Horses are a major part of life in Deauville and in Normandy in general. Many of the Parisians who come to vacation here keep horses dozing in stables around Normandy and take them out for a ride when they arrive in Deauville.

There are a few massive racetracks in the area, and it’s worth going just to feast your eyes. It’s really impressive.

Deauville Racecourse

There are stables with hundreds of horses, racetracks, and even a restaurant and a café. You can check their opening hours and the best times to visit by email.

There are also horse competitions, where you’ll see Paris‘s finest dressed a little too sharp and polished, watching the races at the racecourse. It’s a bit of a parallel universe, this whole world in France. It’s just interesting to watch, both the horses and the people.

Link to the racecourse’s website

Horseback riding tours in Normandy

Remember the beach I mentioned earlier? CENTRE EQUESTRE DE BLONVILLE SUR MER is a horse farm that runs group horseback tours, and the price, in my opinion, is pretty reasonable: about 40 euros per adult, or 15 euros for little ones. It’s not in Deauville itself but nearby, on the same stretch of beach, a 10-minute drive away.

I saw that they offer horseback rides on the beach, as well as rides through the countryside. Both look great, and they have very enthusiastic reviews on their Google page.

Address: 1 Rue des Tennis, 14910 Blonville-sur-Mer, France

Spa

Also in Deauville, there’s an indulgent spa with treatments and a pool. It’s worth emailing ahead to check availability and that it’s open.

Link to one of them

The Deauville Casino

Deauville has a huge, impressive casino, super glitzy, for those into that sort of thing.

If you’re a fan of the genre, set aside the tank top and your comfy flip-flops, put on high heels and a fancy dress, or a sharp suit and a tight tie, and come play in the big leagues. Who knows, maybe you’ll walk out a millionaire.

Just kidding, probably not, but just for the experience, once in a while and with good judgment, it’s not so bad. My dear grandmother loved the casino. It was one of her favorite pastimes.

She had a lot of luck, and she also knew how to charm people easily and strike up a conversation with anyone, so she usually had a great time.
And if luck wasn’t on her side, she’d crack open a bottle of wine with her new friends and head home zigzagging.
The next day she’d go back to the sea and reset the whole fun all over again.

Markets, my favorite attraction

If my grandmother’s favorite pastime was the casino, for me it was the markets that drew me in much more. There’s an abundance of markets in this area; I don’t think there’s a day of the week when you can’t find a market within reasonable distance. For me? It’s a celebration.

Antiques market

Deauville has a charming antiques market on Saturdays. It’s not cheap, but it’s very interesting and beautiful to see. I enjoy watching the vendors go about their market-day routine, chatting with each other, sometimes teasing each other affectionately. And even when they’re working, unloading or loading goods, their lives always seem perfectly at ease.

Food markets in the area and recommended supermarkets

A request, do me a favor.

On a market day (and there’s always a market somewhere nearby), don’t go to a restaurant. Buy yourself some groceries. Bring a basket. Enjoy all the goodness this miraculous land has to offer. The gastronomy is wonderful, and without putting down the great restaurants, as good as they may be, you’ll find it in greater abundance in the markets that sell local produce.

And what does the region produce?
Anything from the sea (fish, seafood, salt). Anything apple-related (apples, cider, Calvados, apple jelly, jams, and so on). Anything rich and wonderful in butter (really, what else do you need besides a fresh baguette, good salted butter, apple jelly, and a knife in this life?). Cheeses. Nuts, and what not…

Deauville food market

There’s a food market in the summer months, open every day of the week from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., and in the rest of the year on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

Important: don’t touch anything. Say bonjour with a big, warm smile, and ask for what you want… Even if you don’t manage with the language, explain with your hands, patiently and with a smile, and it’ll be wonderful and delicious.

Address:
Place du Marché
14800 Deauville

The Trouville market (Le marché de Trouville)

Trouville is Deauville’s twin sister; they’re almost considered the same town, just different sides of it.
It has a colorful, pleasant character, with restaurants and bars.

It has a market on Sundays and Wednesdays, right on the harbor. I’m in love with this market. Lively and charming, with the smell of the sea, the cries of seagulls.
The delicious smell of food cooking… this is my favorite market.

It’s a market that also sells clothes, jewelry, CDs, accessories, a bit of antiques, and more.

Good luck finding parking…

The Trouville fish market

Trouville also has a small, lively, permanent fish market, next to a few restaurants dedicated purely to fish. A perfect fish soup in the winter is a wonderful option. You’ll feel right at home immediately. Or sole, or any seafood you’re in the mood for, whatever you like. The atmosphere there is always wonderful and lively, and you’re guaranteed an outstanding experience…

The signature fish dish in Trouville is sole, cooked in butter, how could it not be…

Across the way there are brasserie-style restaurants that also serve fish, along with other wonderful things. Some of these restaurants are real institutions that have been around for many years.

I haven’t tried it, so I won’t recommend it yet. Maybe next time. Either way, if you have a place to cook, buy yourself a sole and some good butter and go treat yourself. Send me a thank-you note afterward.

Pont-l’Évêque

The wonderfully simple market in Pont-l’Évêque, about a fifteen-minute drive from Deauville, runs on Monday mornings. There’s food there, but also all kinds of other things. The best part is watching the locals stock up or chat with each other.

This is what it looks like outside. (The green square one.) I didn’t take a photo inside, you’ll have to trust me on this one…

Supermarkets

The big supermarkets I visit regularly are Carrefour Touques and E.Leclerc Touques. These are two large, really well-stocked supermarkets right at the entrance to Deauville, right next to each other. There are smaller supermarkets within Deauville and Trouville themselves, but these bigger ones, in my opinion, are better stocked. Your call.

Recommended restaurants in Deauville

So what do you eat here?

In general, I love markets and grocery stores in France, and I really enjoy cooking. So I’m always in favor of stocking up and cooking for myself when that’s an option. But if you feel like eating out, here are a few options.

Here’s a tip from me to you (a friend showed me this once and I’ve worked this way ever since): open Google Maps. Set your location to your area. Type in “restaurant.” A list of restaurants will pop up right away. You can see what’s nearby, what they serve, roughly how expensive it is, and, most important in my view, the rating. Try to pick something rated above 4.5 if you can, or just go with the highest rating available.

Les Jardins de Coppelia

Using this method, I found a restaurant that was nothing short of brilliant. I knew that on a certain day I wanted to be around Honfleur, so I searched maps for a restaurant along the road from Deauville to Honfleur. That’s how I “stumbled” onto a hotel restaurant in the middle of a forest, right on the road to Honfleur, with an excellent rating of 4.6.

After reading the reviews, my brother and I decided to go give the restaurant a try.

The scenery on the way there was simply stunning. Woods and forest, with roads winding through the thicket.

Every so often a manor house would appear, or a farm full of horses. Finally we reached the hotel grounds, which were simply moving.
Apple trees, endless green space, charming little corners everywhere. Wow. Trees in autumn colors, fields, and endless more magic.

In our hearts we prayed that the meal would live up to expectations too, because, honestly, we’d already fallen in love with the place and really didn’t want to be disappointed. At this restaurant, there’s an option for a gastronomic meal, and an option for tapas at the bar. Less about elevated cuisine, more about sitting with friends and chatting.

Just glancing at the menu, it looked a bit like what you’d find at the entrance to an event hall. Sausages, little kebabs, and various fried things. It didn’t interest us much, though I imagine it’s charming simply because the place itself is so wonderful.

But if you’ve come for amazing food, go for the gastronomic meal side. Important: when you book a table, don’t order anything other than the gastronomic meal. I accidentally reserved a spot for everything and managed to confuse everyone.

The amuse-bouche, a small appetizer meant to amuse the palate, turned out to be a small green gazpacho with a cheese foam on top. Could die for it… and crazy bread with crazy butter, and the meal hadn’t even started yet.

I, for example, ordered foie gras (completely my guilty pleasure, just one of many).

What arrived was a dish split into three small portions: amazing foie gras, a pumpkin foam that was so delicious, and crazy brioche. Dear god of the chubby ones, it was perfect, nothing less. The other dishes we ordered were also excellent and surprising.

And so, by the end of the meal, we had polished off every plate they served us, and found nothing to complain about. The feeling was pure euphoria. Ants of delight running through the body, and from that moment on we walked around all day with a silly grin.

And the dessert. God help us. The menu listed it as: caramel | chocolate | vanilla. But by this point we already understood it was going to be much, much more than that.

My brother Uriel only ordered coffee for dessert. This is what arrived…

And the shot of espresso! The coffee was excellent!

As was everything else on that plate, which disappeared in no time. The price, if I remember correctly, and certainly relative to the quality of the food we tasted, was really reasonable. This isn’t a bistro at 13 euros a dish. It’s something else, and honestly, if it had cost more, I would have happily paid more.

40 euros for two courses from the menu, 55 euros for 3 courses, 65 for four courses. Or 95 euros (or something like that, I don’t remember exactly) for a large chef’s selection of dishes. (We took the 3-course option, and left, as I said, over the moon.)

I also loved that alongside the wine and food menu, they gave us a little booklet describing where each ingredient that reached the restaurant came from.

I’m very, very connected to and fond of this link between terroir (the land, or more precisely, the whole set of growing conditions behind an ingredient) and the plate.

*Don’t forget to check opening hours and days, blame the French and their holidays. You never know if today happens to be some day off that has nothing to do with anything. Or a strike, which is every French person’s favorite hobby…

Address: 478 route du Bois du Breuil – RD 62, 14600

Restaurant website

Villa Leona

A warm recommendation for a wonderful Italian spot in Deauville.

I visited Deauville recently and was completely exhausted, both physically and emotionally. It was also deep off season, so lots of restaurants were closed, including some that didn’t mention it anywhere.

I was looking for comfort, and found it in the shape of a simply wonderful and charming Italian restaurant, a five-minute walk from my apartment.

It was just me, and a couple of other scattered guests at different tables in the restaurant, and even though the decor was absolutely lovely, I was a little worried.

I didn’t know.

An empty restaurant isn’t such a good sign.

On the other hand, it was midweek, in the deepest of the off season, and the reviews only spoke well of it.

I said, let’s go for it.

Not to mention the dessert I passed on for the same reason.

I was disappointed in myself, and made a note to come back and try this wonderful restaurant again next time. It’s only fair that I check out its desserts too.

Address: 24 Rue Désiré le Hoc, 14800 Deauville

Le grand manège

A recommendation for a charming spot to sit inside Deauville’s racecourse (hippodrome).

As is typical of restaurants in France, the opening hours are limited. The hours for serving meals are even more limited, strictly from 12:00 to 14:00.

Until 16:00 you can sit for coffee and a pastry, or ice cream, on the restaurant’s couches.

Address: 14 avenue Ox & Bucks, 14800 Saint-Arnoult

Pâtisseries

If you search “patisserie,” you’ll see where the best pâtisseries in your area are. In Deauville everything is pretty much within walking distance, so wherever you choose, it should be reasonable to get there on foot. By the way, for fans of Maison Kayser, there’s a great branch of theirs in Deauville.

Here’s the link

Boulangerie Eric Kayser – Place Morny
‏‪+33 2 31 88 05 87‬‏

Another pâtisserie I really enjoyed, which also serves breakfast, is right on the market square in Trouville. Highly recommended, get ready to gain a few pounds.

If they have it, try the praline rose brioche. It’s a delicacy, and if you’re going to cheat on your diet, this is the way to do it. One thing though, skip the coffee, and somebody really needs to teach the French how to make a good cup of coffee.

You can order a chocolat chaud there, hot chocolate with a rich, velvety texture. Like I said, if you’re going to indulge in cholesterol, do it right.

DUPONT avec un thé
‏‪+33 2 31 88 13 82‬‏

And one last one I loved (there’s really no shortage of them, you could try a different one every day).

Here, at this shop, there’s a wide variety of cookies. More or less everything here is delicious beyond belief…
Please, please try this place.

Biscuiterie La Trinitaine – Deauville
‏‪+33 2 31 88 09 97‬‏

And one last recommendation in this category, it’s simply hard to choose…

Pâtisserie François Gayet
‏‪+33 2 31 81 05 00‬‏

If you’re there in season, get a fraisier (strawberry tart). It’s perfect…

Should You Base Yourself in Deauville to Explore Normandy?

Deauville and Trouville make an excellent base for a star-shaped trip around the region.

On one side, within a reasonable distance, you have the whole stretch of coastline toward Étretat (more on that another time), with its wonderful fields, sheep, simply gorgeous, and endless gorgeous manor houses.

On the other side, you can fairly easily reach Mont-Saint-Michel, Saint-Malo, the D-Day beaches, or charming small towns like Honfleur, Pont-l’Évêque, and many more.

There’s shopping too (a Primark not too far away, outlet malls, and more), and wonderful food.

And quiet. So much quiet, finally, something many of us are seriously lacking these days.

On one side, the sea. On the other, green woods, fields, and valleys.

One small piece of advice from me to you: get lost.

It’s important and nice to check off the places you feel you must see while you’re alive. But getting lost means handing the world the keys and simply enjoying what it has to offer. And this corner of our round world has endless things to offer.

Look for unremarkable roads with no interesting name, roads that cut through thick forest, between enormous estates and village houses.
Look for horses grazing, like water. Apples, so many apple trees, pull the car over and take out whatever you bought at the market that morning for a quick snack.

Allow yourself to get a little lost. You won’t regret it.

All the best-rated hotels and apartments in Deauville

How do you get there?

The flight you need is to Paris. By car, it takes about two and a quarter hours. From the airport, you can take the train from Paris to the center of Deauville.
Or, rent a car at the airport. In my opinion, this is the better option if you want to explore the region.

If you’re arriving by train to Deauville and want to rent a car there, pay attention! Choose a car rental location inside the town itself, for example Hertz, and not Europcar, which is an hour’s walk outside of town. Don’t ask me how I found that out.)

Looking for more information on Normandy?

• Feel free to check out the Normandy travel guide page on the site, where you’ll find plenty more articles and useful information about this region.
• If you’d like to ask Yael or me a question about Normandy, or share your own travel experiences from there, feel free to join the Facebook group Normandy for Travelers.

Related reading

• Normandy’s Cider Route: A Trail of Apples and Spirits
• Coutances (Normandy): Much More Than Another Stop on the Way to Mont-Saint-Michel
• The History of Honfleur: Vikings, the Slave Trade and Impressionists