The journal
Our guides to planning a stay — written by the people who live here
People ask us the same things before every booking: how long it takes to reach Honfleur, where to take the children when it rains, how to sleep twelve without the whole thing turning into a logistics exercise. Rather than answer once by email, we write it down here.
These are not blog posts written from an office in Paris. We live between Trouville-la-Haule and Pont-Audemer, in the Risle valley, forty minutes from Deauville and an hour and forty from Paris. The places we name are places we go; the opening times are ones we check; and when something isn't worth the detour, we say so.
Three guides so far: renting a large house in Normandy when there are twelve of you, what to do around Pont-Audemer when it rains, et three days with the family between Honfleur and the Risle. More will follow with the seasons.
Three nights in Normandy without spending your life in the car: the harbour and the boardwalk on day one, water and farms on day two, the abbey and the markets on day three. With real distances and the opening times that matter.
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It rains in Normandy. The real question isn't dodging it but having a plan B that holds a whole day, ten minutes away, without booking three weeks ahead. Bowling, escape rooms, laser tag, museums and libraries: what actually exists.
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Putting twelve people under one roof is nothing like booking a hotel room. What genuinely changes, what the advertised prices leave out, the questions to ask before you sign, and how to hand out the bedrooms without falling out.
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