Villerville, the Normandy seaside village the French keep to themselves
Halfway between Trouville and Honfleur, a cliff-top village that never made it onto the postcard circuit. What a weekend there looks like, on foot from the villa.
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Deauville has its boardwalk, Honfleur its old harbour. Villerville, halfway between the two, has neither, and that is exactly why people come back. A village of cliffs and steep lanes, a sandy beach that opens up for hundreds of metres at low tide, a handful of shops, two or three café terraces, and the sea wherever you look.
A film-set village without the film-set crowds
Villerville owes part of its reputation to Un singe en hiver, the 1962 classic shot here with Jean Gabin and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Sixty years on, the village has kept the same scale: Belle Époque villas clinging to the slope, a church at the centre, neighbours who say hello. You come here to walk, read, swim and eat well, not to be seen.
A weekend on foot
- The beach, a ten-minute walk from the villa down the path. At low tide the sand stretches for hundreds of metres: time for long walks, sandcastles and foraging in the rock pools.
- The coastal path to Trouville, along the cliffs. Allow a good hour and a half, with the Channel below and the rooftops of Trouville at the end. Take a taxi back, or walk it if you have the legs.
- The village shops for morning bread, newspapers and the essentials; the Cocci Market grocery on rue du Lavoir is a nine-minute walk. For a proper market, Trouville's (Wednesday and Sunday mornings) is ten minutes by car.
- La Ferme du Château, a twelve-minute walk: a certified organic farm selling seasonal fruit and vegetables grown on site.
Within twenty minutes
Trouville-sur-Mer for its fish market, beach huts and brasseries. Deauville for golf, horses, the casino and the boutiques. Honfleur for the old harbour, the all-wooden church of Sainte-Catherine and the galleries. Further out, the Pays d'Auge and its cider routes, or the D-Day beaches an hour's drive away.
The secret is not to rush
From the villa, a typical day goes like this: a few lengths in the pool on waking, breakfast with bread from the village, a walk down to the beach, a seafood lunch in Trouville, a nap in the sun on the terrace, the sauna before dinner. Back to Paris on Sunday evening, 1 h 50 on the A13, properly rested. From London, it is a morning's journey: Eurostar to Paris, then the train to Trouville-Deauville, or the ferry into Caen or Le Havre.
Villerville is not a place you visit, it is a place you live in for a while. One weekend is enough to understand why people return.