Deauville

Deauville was laid out from 1860 by the Duc de Morny, half-brother of Napoleon III, as a resort for Parisians at a comfortable train distance, and it has stayed that: half-timbered villas in a deliberately picturesque style, a racecourse, a casino, polo grounds and a marina. The boardwalk, Les Planches, runs along the beach on wooden decking past rows of parasols and beach huts, each hut bearing the name of an actor who attended the American Film Festival, which the town has hosted since 1975. Coco Chanel opened a shop here in 1913 that helped make her name. The tide goes out a long way over flat sand.

History

The history of Deauville goes back to 1060, when the lord Hubert du Mont-Canisy held the land, then called Auevilla, and he followed William the Conqueror to England in 1066. Until 1860 it was a small place known for horse breeding and growing sainfoin, when the Duc de Morny, half-brother of Napoleon III, began turning it into a resort: before his death in 1865 a railway from Paris, the racecourse, a small casino, more than forty villas, the Grand Hotel and in 1863 La Terrasse, a spa with a 1,800-metre seafront promenade, had been built. A second wave of development came in the early 20th century under Désiré Le Hoc and Eugène Cornuché, with the Normandy and Royal hotels and the casino of 1911-1913 and luxury shops including Coco Chanel's first; the boardwalk of Les Planches was completed in 1923, the Hôtel du Golf followed in 1929, and in 1931 the airport brought London within two hours (Wikipedia, Deauville).

What's there

• Les Planches - the wooden boardwalk with named beach huts.
• The film festival names - actors' names on the huts along the beach.
• The half-timbered villas - a picturesque resort architecture from the 1860s.
• The racecourses - two tracks with a major August thoroughbred season.

When to go

May to September for the beach; the American Film Festival is in September and horse racing peaks in August. The town is quiet and much of it closed in winter.

Good to know

Prices are high across the board. The Channel is cold and swimming brief for most. The town empties and closes substantially out of season.

Nearby

Trouville lies across the river; Honfleur is east.