When you think of French beaches, the sparkling Cote d’Azur first springs to mind. Move your gaze up the map slightly, and let them rest on France’s northern coast, whose villages and ports were once the leisure spots of Paris’s high society. Puff Daddy and his ilk may holiday in its southern sister, but Napoleon III and his entourage preferred the north.

Dotting the coast, just two hours from Paris are several beautiful harbour towns, the showpieces of which are Deauville, and only slightly further along, the literarily mythic Cabourg. Don’t be put off by the fact that these resort towns are situated on our humble English Channel rather than a more exotic body of water – this side belongs to La France, and, bien sur, everything is steeped in elegance.

Les grands hotels

The elegant epicentres of these two towns are Les Grands Hotels, The Royal Barrière in Deauville and Le Grand Hotel in Cabourg. They are magnificent Belle Époque structures that abut the sea, pastel façades intimating Versailles, swooping windows and looming entrances in high Beaux-Arts style.

In both hotels, vaulted ceilings are propped up by gleaming rows of marble columns whorled with yellow and umber tones. At the arched entrances to opulent sitting rooms, swathes of fabric fall from the ceiling coloured an ochre that intimates the sand dunes. In every corner sits a richly upholstered fainting couch – a necessary feature for the corseted guests of its heyday – and mirrored panels reflect the ornate chandeliers. Intimate tables nestle close to the floor-to-ceiling windows that line the rooms. These casements reveal how these two mansions differ from any other experience of Belle Époque grandeur: out of the four-metre tall panelled glass windows – flung open on fair weather days – is the blue expanse of the sea, improbably natural and free when juxtaposed to the ornate contrivances of the hotels’ interiors.

A literary past

Cabourg distinguishes itself from its coastal fellows through the legacy of a distinguished guest: Marcel Proust. Within Cabourg’s Grand Hotel, Proust penned his famous novel La Recherché du Temps Perdu (“The Remembrance of Things Past”). In truth, the book, which scrutinises the private agonies of the families of France’s leisure class, is less a work of fiction than the observation of the occupants of Le Grand Hotel at le fin de siècle. Proust spent seven summers here, the only place where his chronically weak lungs found respite.

It’s curious that in its nearly 200-year history, this one guest defined Cabourg’s identity; the town has named numerous streets after the author and characters from his works, and hosts a yearly Proust convention with visitors from around the world. You can even choose to stay in the Marcel Proust room, kitted out to the exact specifications of the author’s written descriptions of his sojourn, or browse the aptly named antiquities shop La Recherché de Temps Perdu.

Stylish eating

Cabour's Grand Hotel also has a lovely restaurant that you needn’t be staying at the hotel to enjoy. Proust code-named the Cabourg/Deauville “Balbec” and the Grand Hotel’s restaurant bears that name. It offers a sumptuous set meal reasonably priced at £30. Sitting scarcely ten metres from the briny deep in its crystal chandeliered confines, it would be beneath one to order anything four-footed. Begin with the langoustines bedded in mango, and continue to “Le Classique Francais”, brown butter-rich sole Meuniere, with tender asparagus and artichokes. Calvados, a spirit made from local apples is a regional specialty, a tipple (or six) of this is necessary to finish off any meal, as are slivers of local cheeses brought around on a wheeled “chariot” for your delectation.

The horse is king

Back in Deauville, there are more than literary diversions on offer. The town is a mix of Belle Époque buildings and Norman half-timbered houses, lovingly preserved through the ages, with many converted into bed and breakfasts. The tourism board proudly declares that, “In Deauville, the horse is king!” and two race tracks, Le Deauville-Clairefontaine and Hippodrome Deauville-La Touques - built in 1862 by the Duke de Mornay, Napoleon III’s half-brother who is credited with making the entire region fashionable. Together there are over 200 races a year here. Not bad for a town with a non-tourist population of under 5,000.

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