Cabourg, the romantic, Houlgate, the seaside fantasy, Villers-sur-Mer, the opulent, Deauville, the fashionable, Trouville, the charming, Honfleur, with its basin and its cobbled streets. Under the name of Côte Fleurie, a string of famous localities, synonymous with chic and romanticism. A line of Belle Époque villas rivaling each other in eccentricities, an invigorating seaside, the ghosts of famous artists and landscapes immortalized on canvas and film populate this coastline bathed in magical light and a mild climate.
The Côte Fleurie, or seaside chic
In the 19th century, wealthy elites launched the vogue for sea bathing and created the seaside resort. The cities of the Côte Fleurie emerge. Popular with artists who contribute to their fame, they are developing.
From the 1930s onwards, the most elite fans abandoned the Côte Fleurie in favor of the Riviera, but progress in transport, paid holidays and the expansion of tourism led a new population to the beaches which kept the area alive and growing. fortune of seaside sites.
Did you know? In the 1930s, on the beaches of Deauville, Coco Chanel participated in the emergence of the fashion for tanned complexions, overturning the canon of feminine beauty that was white skin for the elites.
The Côte Fleurie, a source of inspiration
The atmosphere, life, landscapes and light of the Côte Fleurie have continued to attract artists who draw inspiration there and find a setting conducive to creation.
Many writers (Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Marguerite Duras, etc.) stayed there regularly.
In the 19th century, painters left the workshops and set up their easels in the open air to capture the light of the Côte Fleurie on the canvas and capture the emotion (Mozin, Huet, Corot, Boudin, Courbet,
Monet, Caillebotte, Pissaro, Seurat…). In the 20th century, the wild beasts took up the themes of their elders with great color (Dufy, Van Dongen, etc.).
Since the 1920s, beaches, villages and villas have offered a natural setting of choice to filmmakers, who come to plant their cameras a few kilometers from Paris (A Monkey in Winter in Villerville, Intouchables in Cabourg, A Man and a Woman in Deauville, The 400 moves in Villers, I stay in Blonville-sur-Mer, Bob the flambeur at the Deauville casino…).
“Having learned that there was a hotel in Cabourg, the most comfortable on the entire coast, I went there. » 'Letter from Marcel Proust to Mme de Caraman-Chimay, summer 1907). Every summer, for 7 years, the writer returned to Cabourg and depicted the Grand Hôtel and the promenade. “[…] this dining room at Balbec appeared naked, filled with green sunlight like the water of a swimming pool, and a few meters from which the full tide and broad daylight raised, as in front of the celestial city, a rampart indestructible and mobile of emerald and gold. » (In the shade of young girls in flowers).
Things to do on the Côte Fleurie
MUSEUMS
- Deauville | The Franciscans Trouville | Villa Montebello
- Honfleur | Eugène-Boudin Museum, Maison Satie, Museum of Old Honfleur
FESTIVALS
- May | Full wind : kite festival on the beach | Houlgate
- June | Romantic Film Festival | Cabourg
Cabourg my love | Cabourg - July | RéciDives Festival : diversity of puppet aesthetics | Dives-sur-Mer
| Musical walks in the Pays d’Auge - September | American Film Festival | Deauville
| Off-Courts International Short Film Festival | Trouville - November | Russian Film Festival | Honfleur
BOTANICAL EXHIBITIONS
- April | Garden in bloom | Cabourg
| Passionately garden | Honfleur
WITH CHILDREN
- Water activities: sea bathing and beach , lengths in the swimming pool at Trouville (summer), fishing on foot in Cabourg, Houlgate or Merville-Franceville.
- Land activities: trotting on the sand, playing a mini-golf in Cabourg, playing paleontologist by going in search of fossils on the Vaches Noires cliffs (Houlgate, Villers), cycling along the coast.
- Thrills: the Deauville Adventure Park offers paintball, tree climbing, adventure courses, zip lines and all-terrain electric scooter rides.
- Transport yourself to a tropical environment, to the butterfly greenhouse at Naturospace in Honfleur.
- Travel back in time to meet the dinosaurs at the Paléospace in Villers-sur-Mer.
- Comfortably seated, escape into the pages of the books of the Les Franciscaines media library in Deauville.
- Take refuge at the cinema : Le Drakkar in Dives-sur-Mer offers sessions with snacks or workshops throughout the year. Festivals: Drakkar'Toon (fall holidays), Little Films Festival (summer).
FOR SPORTSMEN
- Olympic swimming pool in Deauville, sand yachting in Cabourg and Trouville, kite surfing in Houlgate, sea kayaking in Villers-sur-Mer, fatbike on Trouville beach… there are many water sports to practice on the Côte Fleurie! You can also descend the Touques and the Dives by canoe-kayak or sail on a traditional rig with the Petit Foc association in Trouville.
- To tease the trout, go to the Touques (sea trout). If you prefer shellfish, go fishing on foot on the sandy beaches of Cabourg, Houlgate or Merville-Franceville in search of cockles.
- With a sea view or more rural? Choose your golf course in Cabourg, Houlgate, Deauville and Saint-Julien-sur-Calonne.
- For a game of outdoor tennis, book your court in Cabourg, Deauville, Trouville…
- Small, quiet circuits to explore with the family or more sporty loops, the coastline is teeming with hiking trails: there is something for all your desires!
- In the land of horses, you will be spoiled for choice! And don't miss out on attending the
- horse races in Cabourg and Deauville.
- With family or alone, itineraries of various levels and durations along the coast. Some ideas: cycle route from the Côte fleurie (Cabourg) to the Dives marsh (Mézidon), maritime cycle from Cabourg to Merville-Franceville.
These are cliffs around a hundred meters high, located between Houlgate and Villers. These large blocks covered in algae reminded sailors of a herd of cows. The protected site can be explored on foot at low tide. It houses fossils dating back several hundred million years, witnesses of a distant tropical past.