Paris & Coastal Normandy Road Week

Two trips in one, joined by a steering wheel: a few days of Paris on foot, then a car and the open coast of Normandy. It starts in the city — Left Bank café mornings, the Louvre, the Seine going gold at dusk — and ends where the land runs out at the edge of the Channel. It suits travelers who like a capital and a coastline in equal measure and don't want to choose. The character is in the shift of gears. Paris asks you to slow down and sit still; Normandy asks you to drive, and the driving is the point — short, unhurried legs between harbor towns, with time to stop when a view earns it. This is a balanced week, neither rushed nor idle, and it rewards curiosity over box-ticking. The evidence is everywhere once you leave the city. Honfleur's Vieux Bassin, ringed by tall slate-fronted houses, is best at the hour the lanterns come on and the water goes still. At Étretat the chalk cliffs arch straight out of the sea, and the clifftop paths above them are walkable in an afternoon. Then the register changes again: Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery ask for quiet, and give a lot back. In Bayeux, the thousand-year-old tapestry tells its conquest story in wool, stitch by stitch, more vivid than any textbook. Come in late spring or early fall, when the coast roads are clear and the light off the water is long. Eat the oysters. Drink the cider — it's the local pour, and it's better here.