Deauville and Trouville: Unidentical twins

Deauville and Trouville, in Normandy. One half is the poshest resort in France, the preserve of celebs and fashionistas. The other half is as funky, laid-back and family-friendly as its neighbour is smart and snooty.

They’re connected by a footbridge, but they don’t even acknowledge each other’s existence. However, for the visitor with no axe to grind, Deauville and Trouville-sur-Mer make a fantastic holiday offering.

Between them, they’ve got it all. Deauville has two of France’s finest hotels, a glamorous wedding cake of a casino, designer shopping and an absolutely world-class spa.

Trouville has eclectic vintage shops, affordable little “hotels de charme”, great open fish and produce markets and the buzziest and most fun brasserie on Brittany’s north coast.

To cap it all, both have great broad, sandy white beaches and are just a three-hour drive from Boulogne, now served by the fastest ferry sailing out of Dover.

Where you base yourself will depend on your budget and interest in hanging out with the French glitterati. The lobby of Deauville’s Hotel Normandy is packed with them, from affluent Parisian tycoons with families or girlfriends in tow to aged doyennes, still incredibly elegant at 80 in their Chanel.

In summer, much of the action decamps to the Normandy’s sister hotel, the Royal, which has a great outdoor swimming pool where seeing and being seen is as much a part of the fun as swimming.

Both are run by Lucien Barriere, which also operates the casinos in each resort. By far the most glamorous is the Deauville casino, also home to big-name music acts throughout the year.

Celebs abound in the resort all year, musos joined in September by the Hollywood A-listers attending the Deauville Film Festival, one of Europe’s most respected.

Many have their names emblazoned on the beach huts which line the broad sands beyond the boardwalk.

Shopping and Eating
But many visitors never even make it to the beach - they’re busy shopping at Ralph Lauren, Hermes and other designer stores, or posing outside Le Drakkar or other posh pavement eateries.

The food is good and just about affordable at Le Drakkar, and it’s fun to dine with the wealthy one night and watch the poseurs parading past. But a bigger and less costly treat is a meal 15 minutes’ stroll across the bridge in Trouville at the famous Brasserie les Vapeurs.

Whether you eat moules a la creme and other fabulously fresh seafood fished out of the Normandy harbours, or a simple steak frites, dinner at les Vapeurs inevitably turns into a crazy night out.

It could well be the huge bottles of Calvados the waiters wheel out to dispense complimentary thank-you tots to diners as they near the end of their meal. Or just the waiters, who are an exceptionally friendly, helpful and sunny lot.

Thalasso Bliss
Wherever you eat, stay or shop - and the little vintage shops and brocantes in Trouville’s back streets certainly have some eclectic goodies in their windows - leave at least half a day for an utterly pampering session in Deauville’s magnificent sunken thalassotherapy centre metres from the sea.

Thalasso harnesses the power of seawater, pumped straight into the spa, plus seaweed, to not only benefit the skin, joints and other parts of the body but also lift the spirits. Best treatments are immersion in a deep seawater bath equipped with jets and a massage “sous affusion”, in which warm seawater is gently dripped onto your back from overhead jets as the masseuse works her magic. Seaweed wraps are also popular - but being hosed down from a distance with highly-pressurised seawater is considerably less fun.

The Deauville centre also has an Olympic-sized pool, rooms in which to enjoy facials with superb Algotherm products, and a divine rest room equipped with waterbeds....you could spend the whole day here.   Massages and other spa services are also available at the Royal and Normandy.

Getting there

If there’s one snag about Deauville and Trouville, it’s that they require effort to reach. No regular air service from the UK exists, and the two-hour train ride from Paris is only of use to Parisians. However, LD Lines’s new Norman Arrow serves Boulogne from Dover in one hour flat, and from there it’s an all-motorway, albeit four-hour,  ride to Normandy’s most sybaritic pair of resorts. Or take LD Lines's four-hour crossing from Newhaven to Dieppe,

a 90-minute drive to Deauville.    The closest ferry-port to Deauville and Trouville is Caen, which is a longer crossing leaving from Portsmouth.