Things to do ... Day Trips
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Paris
(125km, 66 of them motorway) Just 1.5 hours by car, a stay at Le Gaillon offers you a great opportunity to visit the French capital during your break. You may take the train from Rouen or Gisors, but it's just as easy to drive and either park in Cergy Pontoise and hop on the RER (overground that joins with the metro and takes about 30 minutes to get you in to the centre), or if you're feeling brave, set your Sat Nav to take you straight to the centre (we normally park in the car park in the Champs Elysees). |
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Disneyland
(167km, 88 of them motorway) We recently took a trip to Disneyland – left Le Gaillon at 7.30a.m. and were through the gates by 9.30. A fantastic, magical day – managed most of the rides, then a lovely early evening meal at the Blue Lagoon restaurant, followed by the electric parade and fireworks – spectacular! Got home at 10.30 – utterly exhausted – and slept soundly for 10 hours. Disneyland is definitely the most efficient (and also the most expensive!) cure for insomnia… |
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Monet's house and garden at Giverny
(77km) It takes about 1.5 hours to get to Giverny. I had been looking forward to seeing the gardens (and they were lovely), but I hadn't realised just how lovely the interior of Monet's house is. It has really inspired us to be a little more adventurous when choosing paint colours for decorating. A beautiful, dreamy place... |
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First World War:
Somme memorials and cemeteries (from 100km, 55 of them motorway) The first world war memorials of the battle of the Somme are just 1.5 hours away to the North East. The Somme river flows about an hour away to the North East of Le Gaillon, and there are countless cemeteries and memorials from the first world war. A particularly moving memorial can be found at Thiepval. It is only 1.5 hours drive to the North-East of us, and we finally got around to visiting it one year when we were spending Christmas at Le Gaillon. We couldn’t have picked a worse day for our visit – it was bitterly cold with a biting wind and the steps of the memorial were covered in sheet ice. But maybe that made it all the more poignant when you think of what the troops had to endure in those trenches in the winter. The memorial is covered with over 72,000 names – these just being the names of the troops killed in the battle of the Somme whose bodies were never recovered so they have no graves… As well as the memorial, there are 300 French graves (all simply marked ”Inconnu”) and 300 British graves (all marked ”A Soldier of the Great War”). |
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Second World War:
Normandy beaches and cemeteries (from 200km, 168 of them motorway) The beaches of Omaha, Juno etc are about 2.5 hours away to the West. There are many places to visit, with museums and areas of beach where guns and pillboxes have been left as they were at the end of the war. |
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Park Asterix
(107km, 33 of them motorway) Another theme park, like Disneyland, but this one is very French! It is based on the comic book stories of Asterix the Gaul, his best friend Obelix, and all the characters from the series. It is especially well known for its large variety of roller coasters, and has begun incorporating rides and themes from historic cultures such as the Romans and the ancient Greeks. |
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Etretat, Fecamp
and Benedictine Abbey (131km, 73 of them motorway) Travel along the "Alabaster Coast", heading west from Dieppe, and you will pass many pretty seaside villages and stunning cliffs and beaches. In Fecamp you can visit the abbey where the Benedictine monks first started producing their famous liqueur. |
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Honfleur
(132k, 99 of them motorway) Travel south from Fecamp and Etretat, and cross over the impressive Pont de Normandie which is a a cable-stayed road bridge that spans the river Seine and takes you to Honfleur. The bridge's total length is 2,143.21 metres (7,032 ft) – 856 metres (2,808 ft) between the two piers Honfleur is especially known for its old, beautiful picturesque port, characterized by its houses with slate-covered frontages, painted many times by artists, including in particular Gustave Courbet, Eugène Boudin, Claude Monet and Johan Jongkind, forming the école de Honfleur (Honfleur school) which contributed to the appearance of the Impressionist movement. The Sainte-Catherine church, which has a bell-tower separate from the principal building, is the largest church made out of wood in France. |
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Mont-st-Michel
(308km, 252 of them motorway) It's about a 3 hour drive to Mont Saint-Michel which is a rocky tidal island, located approximately one kilometre (just over half a mile) off the country's coast, near Avranches, with a population of just 44 people. The island has held strategic fortifications since ancient times, and since the 8th century AD been the seat of the monastery from which it draws its name. The Mont-Saint-Michel and its bay are part of the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. More than 3,000,000 people visit it each year |
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