Deauville is the most glamorous seaside resort on the Norman coast — and it knows it. Since the 1860s, well-heeled Parisians have been making the two-hour train journey to promenade on the famous boardwalk, watch horses race, and be seen at the casino. The town has nicknames to match its ambitions: "the city of the horse" and "the gateway to Calvados."
The seafront Promenade des Planches is the beating heart of Deauville: a long wooden boardwalk lined with cabins painted in the colours of France's most elegant beach clubs. Behind it, the beach is wide and sandy, and on a summer weekend it's packed. The restaurants and bars along the promenade are pricey but the setting is hard to argue with.
Inland from the beach, grand villas in the Norman timber-frame style — set off by the Strassburger Villa and the iconic 1912 Hôtel Normandy — fill the residential streets. Many are private, but simply walking the streets gives you a strong sense of what ambitious late 19th-century seaside architecture looked like. The town is compact enough to cover on foot in a day. The horse racing at La Touques and Clairefontaine is the other long-standing draw, peaking in August.
Across the Touques river lies Trouville, Deauville's less polished but more characterful neighbour. It has better fish stalls, fewer pretensions, and a working fishing harbour. Worth half a day on any visit.