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Normandy, France: A 3 day Road trip itinerary

Updated: Oct 13, 2020


Experience the best Normandy, France with this ideal 3 day road trip itinerary and travel guide featuring all of the top things to see and do in and around Normandy.

Three day road trip itinerary Normandy France
Normandy, France: A three day road trip itinerary

Sometimes the best trips are the ones entered into unplanned and with little expectations. Before visiting, our knowledge of Normandy was limited to the association with its D-Day beaches and dreamy pictures of Mont Saint Michel. This Northern seaside region of France wouldn't have generally been high on our list of places to visit, but thanks some close friends, we ended up here. Living a world away, in the cosmopolitan city of Singapore, we've been lucky enough to meet wonderful people from all over the globe. Sitting in a Chinese language class several years ago a friendship bloomed between us and a lovely French couple from Normandy. This year we were invited to attend the baptism of their children in their hometown, where Andrew would become their daughters' Godfather. It was an invite we wouldn't have missed. Thanks to them we got to experience this historical region of charming seaside towns and rolling green fields.


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Getting to and around Normandy:


We flew into Caen Carpiquet airport via a daily direct flight on Flybe from London Southend Airport. We rented a car from Europcar for 4 days during the trip which we were easily able to collect and return to the airport. As most towns are spread out across the region, having the flexibility of a car to get around made life easy for us, despite having to learn to drive on the other side of the road through narrow laneways. Here is some of the beautiful countryside lanes we passed by during our travels:


We drove through narrow winding roads of quintessentially French-looking country brick houses and pulled up in the small neighbourhood of Benouville, just north of Caen (20mins drive from the airport). We had booked to stay at the Hotel La Glycine, a small boutique hotel with brick exterior covered in green vines and bright purple flowers. This building had been standing since at least world war two. Unbeknown to us, we had selected to stay in the very first neighbourhood liberated in France during World War Two. We were surrounded by history, greeted on entry to historical pictures of the celebrations outside of the building post-liberation.


Our lasting impression of this hotel was the smell as we walked passed its restaurant. It was a smell of warm, meaty and fresh ingredients cooking. On our second night, we would enjoy a four-course meal here, including foie gras, tender veal steak, a seemingly limitless supply of cheese selections. It was one of our favourite meals of the trip and we highly recommended to book if staying there.