If possible they should lay out their journey beforehand, and if time presses make a tour that shall comprise some one distinct region only; as the Seine valley from Havre to La Roche-Guyon; the coast from Tréport to Caen, or even Granville, or Mont St. Michel; or following a line which runs more inland from Rouen by Lisieux, Falaise, and the valley of the Orne, to the famous Mont on the border of Brittany. They may indeed combine this last with a little tour which should take in the north Breton coast and even cross to the Channel Isles; but if it is the Normandy coast or the Norman country-side of the Seine valley which they desire to know fully, and if time be limited, they should confine themselves to either one route or the other.
Normandy divides itself topographically into the three itineraries mentioned: “The Coast,” “The Seine Valley,” and the “Inland Route.” They may be combined readily enough, or they may be taken separately; but to nibble a bit at one, a little at another, and still less at a third, and then rush on to Paris and its distractions, or to some seaside place where brass bands and a casino form the principal attractions, is not the way to have an intimate, personal, and wholly delightful experience of “la belle Normandie.”
A skeleton plan of each of these itineraries will be found, and further details of a practical nature also, elsewhere in this book.
One’s expenses may be what they will. By rail, twelve to fifteen francs a day will amply pay the bill, and by road, on bicycle or automobile, they can be made to approximate as much or as little as one’s tastes demand; nor will the quality of the accommodation and fare vary to an appreciable degree in either case. Even the automobilist with his sixty-horse Mercédes, while he may be suspected of being a millionaire American or an English lord, will not necessarily be adjudged so, and will be charged according to the tariff of the “Touring Club,” or other organization of which he may be a member. If he demands superior accommodation, a sitting-room as well as a bedroom, or a fire and a hot bath, he will pay extra for that, as well as for the vin supérieur which he may wish instead of the ordinaire of the table d’hôte, or the café which he drinks after his meal.
The old simile still holds good. The franc in France will usually purchase the value of a shilling in England. There is not much difference with respect to one shilling; but an appalling sum in a land of cheap travel, when one has let a thousand of them pass through his hands.
The leading hotels of the great towns and cities of Rouen, Havre, and Cherbourg rise almost to the height of the charges of those of the French capital itself; and those of Trouville-Deauville or Dieppe to perhaps even higher proportions, if one requires the best accommodation. The true peripatetic philosopher, however, will have naught to do with these, but will seek out for himself—unless some one posts him beforehand—such humble, though excellent inns as the “Trois Marchands,” or the “Mouton d’Argent.”
These are the real hotels of the country, where one lives bountifully for six to eight francs a day, and eats at the table d’hôte with an informative commercial traveller, or a keenly mindful small landholder of the country-side, who, if it is market-day, will as like as not be dressed in a black blouse.
One criticism may justly be made of many of the hotels in Normandy, though mostly this refers only to such tourist establishments as one finds at Dieppe or Trouville. It is that the table wine is often charged for at two francs a bottle, while it ought to be served without extra charge, and is elsewhere in France. In many commercial hotels this is not the custom, but too frequently it is so, and, considering that the hôteliers of Normandy buy their wine in a much more favourable market, by reason of its cheap transport by sea, than their brethren of Lozère or the Cantal, where wine is never thought of as an extra, it seems somewhat of an imposition to one who knows his France well.
The beef and mutton of Normandy is of most excellent quality, coming from fine animals who are only used if they are in the best condition.
This statement is made with a knowledge based upon some years’ residence, to allay the all too prevalent opinion that French meat is of inferior quality, and is only palatable because well disguised in the cooking. This is a fetish which ought long ago to have been burned. The fish one gets in Normandy is always fresh and remarkably varied, as well as the shell-fish (crevettes, meaning usually shrimp or prawns). The oysters are of course famous, for no one ever heard of a Courseulles bivalve which had typhoid tendencies.
The railway has proved a great civilizer in France, and everywhere is found a system of communicating lines which are almost perfect.
The great artery of the Western Railroad reaches out through all Normandy and Brittany, and its trunk lines to Dieppe, Havre, Cherbourg, and Brest leave nothing to be desired in the way of appointments and expedition.
The only objection, that the economical traveller can justify, is that second and third class tickets are often not accepted for distances under a hundred or a hundred and fifty kilometres; and, accordingly, he is forced to wait the accommodation train, which, truth to tell, is not even a little brother of the express-train. If it is any relation at all, it is a stepchild merely.
At all events, the railway service throughout France is well systematized and efficient, and Ruskin’s diatribe against railways in general was most unholy. Lest it may have been forgotten, as many of his ramblings have, and should be, it is repeated here. “Railways are to me the loathsomest form of devilry now extant, animated and deliberate earthquakes” (we know what he thought of bicycles, and we wonder with fear what may have been his strictures on the automobile had he lived a few years longer), “destructive of all wise, social habits and possible natural beauty, carriages of damned souls on the ridges of their own graves.” This, from a prophet and a seer, makes one thank Heaven the tribe was blind.
Travel by rail is a simple and convenient process in Normandy, as indeed it is in all France. There is no missing of trains at lonesome junctions, and the time-tables are admirably and lucidly planned.
In the larger towns all the stations have a bureau of information which will smooth the way for the traveller if he will not take it upon himself to consult that almost perfect series of railway time-tables found in every café and hotel throughout France. He registers his baggage and gets a receipt for it, like the “checks” of the American railways, by paying two sous; or he may send it by express (not by freight, for there is too little difference in price), or as unaccompanied baggage, which will ensure its being forwarded by the first passenger-train, and at a most reasonable charge.
The economical way of travelling in France, and Normandy in particular, is third class; and the carriages, while bare and hard-seated, are thoroughly warmed in winter, and are as clean as those of their kind anywhere; perhaps more so than in England and America, where the stuffy cushions harbour much dirt and other objectionable things.
Second class very nearly approaches the first class in point of price, and is very nearly as luxurious; while first class itself carries with it comparative exclusiveness at proportionately high charges.
More important, to the earnest and conscientious traveller, is the fact that often, for short distances between near-by places, a convenient train will be found not to carry third-class passengers; and to other places, a little less widely separated, not even second class; although third and second class passengers are carried by the same train for longer distances. This is about the only inconvenience one suffers from French railways, and makes necessary a careful survey of the time-table, where the idiosyncrasies of individual trains are clearly marked.
Excursion trains of whatever class are decidedly to be avoided. They depart and return from Paris, Trouville, Dieppe, or some other popular terminus at most inconveniently uncomfortable hours, and are invariably overcrowded and not especially cheap.
The attractions of Normandy for the traveller are so many and varied that it would be practically impossible to embrace them all in any one itinerary without extending its limit of time beyond that at the disposal of most travellers.