A great many people who could visit Normandy as easily as one of our own coast towns are deterred by the difficulty of knowing where to begin, and what route to take. Normandy is the easiest of all countries to visit. One may begin anywhere with the certainty of finding interest and enjoyment, especially those who are cyclists, for the roads are as a rule excellent, much better than those in Brittany, and one may stay for a longer or shorter time with equal pleasure, for the country furnishes material for many a month, and yet much can be seen in ten days or a fortnight.
The best known starting-place, as we have said, is Dieppe, and of the hundreds who enter Normandy yearly, at least eighty per cent. come in by this gate. A very usual route for a first trip is by Rouen, Evreux, Lisieux, Caen, Bayeux, St Lo, Coutances, Avranches, and St Mont Michel, returning from St Malo. This for a preliminary survey is good, and having once been in the country it is almost certain that the traveller will go again, given the opportunity.
A SEASIDE RESORT
There are of course many people who are content with the sea-coast, and wish to penetrate no further than Dieppe or Trouville, to mention the two largest of the coast resorts. There is much to be said for these places. There is a brilliance in the sunny air, a gaiety in the mingling crowds, a completeness in the round of amusements, and the opportunities for observing one’s fellow-creatures, that are grand elements in the tonic of change. The bathing, the bands, the casinos, the toilets, are all excellent of their kind, and many a tired worker goes back to that office in the city, where his view is limited by his neighbour’s window-reflectors, a new man for the busy idleness of a fortnight at one of these holiday resorts. Unfortunately for those who have not much to spend, the prices at the best hotels at these places in the season are almost prohibitive. However, the season is late, not beginning until July, and there are sunny months before that. There are also countless places along the coast less known, and having the primary advantages of the others; where the sands are just as stoneless and shadeless, and where the sea-air is as fresh and the sky as blue, but where the hotels are not so exorbitant, and the villas and pensions are innumerable also. Such, to take only one example, are the places that line the coast near Caen.
But this is the merest fringe of the subject. One who has sampled the coast towns, and rushed over the main route above described, has hardly begun to know Normandy. He has endless choice left for future holidays. He may make his headquarters at Valognes to explore the Côtentin; he may settle down at Domfront, and wander throughout that lovely district; or he may devote himself to the country around Les Andelys and Gisors; and everywhere he will find opportunity for enjoyment.
The difficulty in passing quickly through Normandy on a cycling or pedestrian tour is to get food when and where you want it. To make any progress at all in summer, it is necessary to start in good time after a substantial meal, then to take a very light luncheon, perhaps carried with one, and to arrive in time for a good dinner at the day’s end. This is very difficult of accomplishment. Such a thing as that which an Englishman calls a good breakfast is almost out of the question, and the probability is that the cyclist riding off the beaten tracks cannot get anything at all for the rest of the day; for of all hopeless places for eatable food, the small villages in Normandy are the worst. Drink of some kind, vermouth, and the sweet syrupy grenadine, can be had at every little shanty, marked “Debit du Boisson,” but there is nothing to eat.
GRANDMOTHER
I can recall one scene which could never have taken place anywhere save in Normandy. An old farmhouse with half-door, which, being opened, admitted one to an old room toned in browns of all shades, heavy beams, walls, and floor alike. A few boughs, green-encrusted, and sending up a thick smoke, lie on the open hearth. A little old dame, of any age one likes to guess, with wizened nut-brown face encircled by a spotless close-fitting coif, is the lady of the house. Her face is one to which Rembrandt alone could have done justice, with an expression at once kindly, dignified, and shrewd. On the rough table, hacked and hewed by many a knife, are set bowls of milk strongly tasting of wood smoke. Sour cream is spread like jam on slices roughly carved from a loaf the size of a bicycle wheel, and about as hard as deal wood. The cream is very sour, and a few lumps of sugar are served out with it to be grated over it. The old dame sits by with folded hands while the party laugh over their strange meal, but as the laughter continues she grows slightly anxious, and asks to be assured that she is not the object of it; a royal compliment in the best French at the command of the best linguist of the party chases away anxiety, and also for the moment dignity and shrewdness, leaving nothing but delight pure and simple on that dear old work-worn face.