Normandy Travel Guide: Monet’s Gardens, Honfleur, Étretat and Rouen

This summer, we spent a few days road-tripping through Normandy after a weekend in Paris, and this is Part 1 of our two-part series. From Monet’s gardens in Giverny to the modern architecture of Le Havre, the historic harbor in Honfleur, the cliffs of Étretat, and an evening in Rouen, we covered a little bit of everything.

In this episode, we share where we stayed, what we ate, and our favorite spots in each town, along with tips for planning your own Normandy getaway. Whether you’re into gardens, coastal views, or historic cities, this trip had it all.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome back. I'm Lisa. And I'm Erin. And this is the Getaways Podcast. All right, so we have a recent, recent trip to talk about today. Very recent.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Like first trip of the summer.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Yeah. So my sister came in to she flew into Paris, and then we Dylan was traveling elsewhere, but it was Aaron and I, and then my niece Megan all met her in Paris, and we spent the weekend in Versailles, which we'll come back and do another episode on Versailles. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna have more to say about Ledome.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

I'm so jealous.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

And then we Megan had to go back to work and we continued on and drove to Normandy, which we've been to Normandy before.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Yes, we've actually two of the places that we went on this trip, we actually stopped on our way to the landing beaches part of Normandy.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Right. Which we will do a whole episode on later. I mean, it deserves a whole episode because there are so many. I've actually been there twice, but the first time we were all together.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

So we'll we're gonna title this one Normandy Part One.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Yes. So we st our first night in Normandy was in Given.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

It was right outside of Givarnet.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Yeah, and it was what was the name of the hotel? It was called Domain Les Corniche. Corniche, yeah. And that was a really cute, nice hotel.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

And it was that's 45 minutes outside of Paris. So I will say it's a decent base for Paris, too, if you have a car, if you don't want to stay in the city.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

I mean, you could get there quickly.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah, and it's not it's not in a city, it's kind of on a cliff overlooking the Seine. So there's not a ton that's walkable from there. So you would want a car anyway if you were staying there.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

But but the hotel was pretty fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

It was so amazing. I mean, it was beautiful, and it had a a spa and rest two restaurants, a bar. It was beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

And we ate dinner there, and it was a set menu of I think three courses. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

You got a good taste of a lot of things and were very full by the end of the night for not a ton of cash.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

It was yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

And my room, the rooms were themed, and my room was rock star.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Your room was rock star. Her room had like LPs all over the wall, and then like a touring trunk that equipment would go in for, like where the coffee pot and everything was. It was so cool.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Yeah. And then my sister's was botanical, and she had like little jars of botanics botanical things everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Super cute. And yours was mine was subway. So like it had the subway tiles, it had graffiti. Mine was a little loud. Dylan would have loved it had he been with this. But the bathrooms were so nice. They had robes.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Well, and they had a nice pool. They had really lovely grounds with a garden and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

And it was 110 euro. What no, it was like 180, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 2:48

With everything.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

With everything.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yeah. I mean, it was, I think before tax and residency fees and all of that stuff, it was like 140.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yeah. So right in that sweet spot for not being too expensive, but luxury. So yeah, so we based there our first night to do Monet's Gardens in Givernay.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Which was about a 20-minute drive, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

15 probably.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

And a really nice drive, like beautiful area.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Beautiful area.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

But but you know, no matter how you expect Monet's garden and the house to look, you're gonna be blown away because it the gardens are so incredibly fantastic and beautiful. And we were there, like we said, the beginning of it was June, July. It was July. July. So everything was in bloom. We got there fairly early. So we didn't have to- That's open almost. Yeah, we didn't have to like wait to get in. The line wasn't too bad.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

The line wasn't horrible. And when we got into the gardens, we had space to walk and we had to, we were able to get really good pictures and like really feel in the moment, I felt like, because it wasn't so crowded. And I'm not one who loves gardens and stuff like that, but I loved this. Like this was so beautiful, especially the the water lily pond. Like I could have I could have stayed there all day.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

And it's exactly like the paintings. It is. I mean, exactly. Like it's it's so like you stepped into a painting. I mean, it's just it's pretty extraordinary. And the other thing that I found that was really crazy was that there was not a dead leaf anywhere. No, their maintenance is fantastic. I mean, pristine, like everything was just absolutely perfect. So we did the gardens all first, which probably you probably could have spent like two hours if you took your time and walked around.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

I think you guys did, because I left after an hour to go get Rex because dogs are not allowed in the gardens.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

But yeah, so I would say give yourself two hours to be safe to see the gardens. And then we went into the house, and that took a little bit. I would say we waited probably 15 minutes or so for the house, but it doesn't take long once you get in there. And I will say we have pictures of the kitchen, which was my favorite part. The kitchen is like a breathtakingly amazing. But every single room, every single perspective in the house, you can see the gardens. And so it's such the quintessential bringing the outdoors in into this property because it's just the gardens consume the house too. And the house is cool, but it didn't like, I mean, and obviously all of his art is in there and you get to see all of that. But what struck me the most besides the kitchen was just how there was no sort of wall, it was indoor-outdoor vibe all the time, which was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

So we did that in the morning, then we went into La Havre and we booked an Airbnb for four nights. Yeah. Yeah. In La Havre, not in the center.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

But not far.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Not far.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

So from La Havre in the actual city, we saw quite a bit.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

We did, we did a bit.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

So we saw there's the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Havre, which is beautiful and certainly worth a look. Doesn't take terribly long at all. We also did the Église de Saint-Joseph, and that is a weird, weird church. One of the most interesting churches. I liked it more than you guys did. But it's it's like a I don't even know how to describe the shape. It's like a like a long pyramid, long skinny pyramid, but and it's all pieces of stained glass, and that's just repetition of I think it's either four or six colors that go up on either side. Like they're all different patterns, but they go up on all the sides. It's really interesting, and I really liked it. And I thought it was just so different than anything you see, yeah, any other churches that you see in Europe, that it struck me as just being really cool.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yeah, I've got pictures of it on the website. That one's going up on Monday.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

So when this lands.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

When this lands, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

And then the volcano.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Yeah. Yeah, that was kind of strange.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

I guess they're famous for it. Well, I think just backing up a little bit, I think one thing that's really interesting about La Havre is that it's definitely a mix between old and new.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

And way more new.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, a lot more new. And I don't know, is that because of the war? I think so. It must have gotten hit hard in the war, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Because it was the port, it was one of the port cities.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, which so it'd be like the same as Rotterdam, right? Where it just got killed to for that reason. But so there's a lot of new construction. There's a lot of sort of modern, well, like St. Joseph is very an example of that too. But volcano, the volcano is even more so.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Yeah, it's a theater, right? It's a it's I didn't go in worrying with it.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Yeah, it's like a music center.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

And it's it's a white volcano. A white volcano. I mean, it was funny because we were kind of looking for it and we were, you know, sort of going through the streets and not exactly sure where we were. And then I looked over and I was like, oh, there it is, because it is so sticks out. I mean, it's it's really architecturally interesting. I don't know that it's everybody's bag, but it's interesting. So there was, we just sort of stumbled across all these things that we had read about just by walking along the harbor. But yeah, then when we came back around, there's the shipping containers, which that's called something. I don't know what it is, though.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

I'll put it on the website. But you know, kind of cool just to see. Yeah. I mean, we didn't have any plans for La Havre, and our Airbnb host was like, Everybody comes to stay here to base for a trot and on floor, but my city's so beautiful. So we took a whole day to explore her city. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

And I'm glad I'm glad we did. Yeah. But you certainly wouldn't need more than that in the actual city. No. All right, should we move on to En Fleur?

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah. So we did three side trips from here.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

So the first was on floor, which I had been to as a student. I think I was there in high school. Is he down there in high school or college? I don't remember. But it is very small, almost not bigger than a village, fishing, fishing town.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

And all the buildings are different colors and the old port. And it's just a super charming, tiny little place.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Yeah. And when you see the pictures of On Floor on the internet, you're gonna be like, oh, it looks like Denmark. It looks like New Haven. Because it they look all colorful things. They're not colorful anymore.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yeah. And I'm like, why are they all gray and black? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why that is, because even in like their postcards, they're colored.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Yeah. They're still, it's still a super charming. I loved it. I thought it was so beautiful and it was so easy to walk around and really pretty.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

And we stopped at we had like kind of a list of like five museum y places that we went to, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Yeah, we started with the the St. Catherine's Church, uh-huh, which is looks like a boat. When you're inside, it looks like the inside of a the ceiling looks like the boat.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Yeah. And that was definitely cool.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

That was cool.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

And then we stopped at the Eric Sate uh museum, which was really well done.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

It was strange, yeah, but it was in a just in a way that you would have never thought to set up a museum like that. But it was really, yeah, it was cool and interesting.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Well, and the you could spend as much time as you wanted, but you could certainly cover the whole thing in less than an hour if you were just spending one day and on floor, like it's not prohibitive from going there at all and and seeing the rest of the town. So the other thing that I thought was really cool about the Eric Sate was that it was pretty interactive.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

It was really interactive.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah. So you could like like kids, I think, would love it. Yeah. But you can like press buttons and it'll give you like a background of some of the art. And then there was at the end of it, there was a lot of things you could actually physically do. And one of them was it was like a little merry-go-round and with stools, and then you with bike pedals, and you could get on and start biking, and it would blow up a whole like balloon above you. Yeah. Right. And it was really cute.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

So yeah, it's really cool. It's like half like kind of a museum on him and half art installation because it had some really like fun art to go along with his music.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah. And then where's the other one that we went to? That was the Eugene Bodine Museum. Who's the artist who basically mentored Monet, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Like maybe the first impressionist that didn't get the credit for being impressionist.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

So that's more of a sort of traditional art museum. Yes. But interestingly set up, really nice. Again, like there's a whole kids area too. So you could leave your kids have be entertained while you kind of walked around. But like I said, none of these things, we did all of this in probably two hours.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yes. So and shopped. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Yeah. So it's all very doable in one day.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

And contained in like a small circle, basically. And they have great local shops with great local artists and cool stuff. And then some really good restaurants.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Yeah. My sister got, we went into this one gallery kind of store, and and my sister got a super cool piece of art. It's kind of long and like a pamoranic.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Pamoran. I can't say panoramic picture. That's what I was trying to say. And the artist was there and like it was just really cool. And it feels very art forward. And and communal. Like it felt like everybody still was a part of the community and you could go talk to them and you know and take something home that nobody else in the world would ever have. You know, it's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

And then we we we were debating on where to have lunch because there's a lot of great places that we run about. And we just kind of walked by this place called Levent Levintage. Levintage, Levintage. And um, and we saw a sign that said three course meal, 25 euros, and it wasn't sign me up. It wasn't like on the super tourist path, and they had a lot of table, like some tables inside available, and we're like, let's do it. It was a very good meal.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

It was very good meal. I ordered, okay, so the three courses for the starter, I had what they called the fisherman's platter, uh-huh, which was sea snails, which I know is not everybody's bag, but I love them. And prawns and oysters and two of each, like teeny tiny seafood tower. What the heck? Like it was and it was really good. I had tartare.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

I was it was a great meal.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

But yeah, big thumbs up to Enflour. I think it's super cute. Parking is easy. Parking is easy. You can spend a day there and and happily see everything that you need to and you know move on.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah, make sure to buy caramel there. It's fantastic. Or caramel.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

There's a lot of candy stores.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Yeah, yeah. Another day trip we did, a different day was E trot.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Which we again, we I'd been there twice before.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

And I'd been there once.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

The cliffs at Atrot are breathtaking.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Yeah. We went we went up the one side when you and I and Dylan went. Oh no, I guess just I did.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Well, yeah, Dylan wasn't even with us. We he was still sleeping.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Oh, okay, yeah. So the first time we went, I went up the one side. But this time we went up to the church and the gardens.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Which Jonathan and I had done before.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

When we were there. But we found something new up there this time. Because we Jonathan and I and Rex had just did like a walk around and saw how pretty it was and stuff. But you guys went to the gardens.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

We went to the gardens, which was there's pictures. This is already up on the internet. I can pictures didn't even describe it because it's it's a garden and it's beautiful. It's got great plants and flowers, but it's got like art in it. It has like these giant baby heads. It's just really hard to explain. It's odd, but they're just so cool. And it took us less than an hour.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Maybe, yeah. And but it they're beautiful, and it was like 10 euros, and I would suggest going in it because you also get great views of the ocean and great views of it trot the town below.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

And the town is really, really cute and very, very small.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Very small.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

I will say though, backing up for one second, the going up on either side you need your footing. I mean, it's there's no there's no sort of rail to hold on to or anything. So just just be anybody who's got any movement issues or you know needs support, probably not for you to go up on either side.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

There's a train down in the center that you can take that will take you up and down to the gardens. And there's also it's still steep, but it's a flat road of cement.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

It's a cement road, not flat. It's still on a hill.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Well, I didn't I didn't mean flat, I meant I don't mean like flat incline-wise, I mean flat like you're not cobble side. It's not cobble. Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

But but if you can get up there, you know, however you do it, it's definitely worth it. And the views of the beaches and everything is just fantastic from up there. The food, food and drink in a trot. Okay, so in a trot, you have to just eat mussels, like you have to. But what else are you gonna do? They're so good. And you pair it with a apple cider. Which like it they run the total gamut. We did a little tasting little shop, and you would think cider is cider, right? It's so not true. Like they all taste so dramatically different. It's like wine.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Yeah. I think we talked about did we ever talk about it? Well, we call it we talked Barney.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

We talked about it Barney, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

On this website? I mean on this podcast. On this podcast, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

I don't remember what what we were I don't remember what context it was, but yeah, we definitely talked about the the Barney aspect of the some cider tastes like horse barns.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Horse barns.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Horse blanket, yeah. But once you once you sort of know what your taste is, like it's it's really nice. It's really nice in summer. It's really nice. Well, it's nice anytime in fall. And it's super nice with the mussels. And because a lot of the mussels are cooked in cider. So it's a perfect pairing, which is I highly recommend, which is what I ate when we were there.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, you really can't go wrong any place you eat there because it's all pretty much mussels and seafood straight from the sea and cider.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Yeah. No, it's nice. And there's also the brandy, the apple brandy, which we're not fans of necessarily.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

It's called Calvados.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Yeah, it's a little hardcore, but a lot hardcore.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

All right, so moving on, Rowan. Oh my gosh. This was just a fluke. Like what what made us we just found it on this trip, right? No, we went for a very specific reason. Yes. So Lisa, Lisa's birthday was in August, as you know from a couple episodes ago. But so her sister was coming in July. So for her birthday, Lisa had found this restaurant that's the oldest restaurant, the oldest continuous restaurant in France.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

In Europe, I think. In Europe. It's either France or Europe. I don't remember. But since like forever it's been around. And it is It's called La Coron. Coron. And it is stupid. I mean, it is so adorably cute from the outside, and it only gets better on the inside.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

And like traditional Normandy dishes.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah. Yeah. And well, backing up to finish the birthday part. Yeah. So apparently you guys had a conversation, and my sister said that she wanted to take us there for my early. Which I did not say no to that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

I mean, that's a present. That is a gift. And it was a gift for me too.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

So obviously we spent the whole day there before, but just to continue on the dinner, so it was three courses, starter, main, and then dessert, and we got a cheese course too. So I think it was a four-course. And everything was spectacular. Yes. But yeah, no, it was, it was the meal was fantastic. Like I said, the decor inside, they had pictures of like, you know, famous people that had been there, and from everyone from like Martha Stewart and Julia Child to like Sylvester Stallone.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Like and even people further back, like Marlene Dietrich.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Yeah. Yeah. Julia Child was actually inspired by this restaurant to start cooking and start her French cooking. And I just always like when I read that whole story, I was like, oh, I really, really, really need to go there. So very lucky to to be able to go there and highly recommend if you guys are in the area at all, because it is it is a piece of history in addition to a fantastic meal.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

But this fantastic meal led us to probably one of my favorite towns.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Yeah, because we really only went there for dinner. And then, you know, we were like, oh, well, it's it was what, an hour away from La Hav.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

And so we're like, okay, well, it's dumb to just go there to eat and drive right back. So let's go walk around and spend some time there.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

And I mean, I swear my mouth was probably just like a gaping hole when we started walking around to begin with because it was so much nicer than I was expecting it to be.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

I I can't wait to go back and spend more time because I had no idea. We only allotted like two hours before eating, but we could have been there days.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

That's where we're basing from now on.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Well, and one of I mean, churches are everywhere. Like everywhere you turn, there's a church, but giant church.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

There's four giant ones. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Yeah. And I loved the cathedral, but Joan of Arc is the big sort of staple there, I feel like, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Yeah. So Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in this town. This is where happened and there's a whole church is it called it's the church of the Joan of Arc, right? Yeah. It's a whole she has a whole church that's architecturally just strange. It's like a boat too. Kind of yeah with a tail kind of yeah and and then a big monument where she was burned and then there's a statue for her. It's very cool.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

And literally right outside the restaurant. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

So but they've got the churches and then the big church at the end at night when they were doing the projections when we walked by. Was that Notre Dame?

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I guess they have like a lot of events there and like do a lot with lights and shows and and also the market, the fish market right next to Joan of Arc.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Yeah we we did not get to spend a lot of time there and I know there's so much more to see.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

So and there's supposed to be great Christmas markets. So we were thinking about heading back there. All right did we miss anything? I don't think we did. We did a a lot in a very short period of time and saw a whole part of Normandy that we hadn't seen before. There's something really special about Normandy and very, very diverse.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

I mean it's every every city is very different and there's a very different vibe and a very different sort of look to it and but it's definitely a region I would put on your list if you need to see. And I don't think a lot of people think about it because you know you think D Day and you also just think of the war and that it's going to be sad which you know there is an element to that if you're on those side of the beaches but there's so much more to see and and so much of it is not at all sad and not at all you know reminiscent of the war. It's kind of created its own or it is its own entity.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Yeah I agree. To go to Normandy. Yes go to Normandy and then come back next week and listen to our podcast. And we will see you next time. Thanks for listening. Check out the website at wthetawayswith dot com. I already have Trot on floor and Ron up there and Lahade will be up there today. We will see you guys soon. Thanks for listening. Bye bye