Beaches in Normandy

A tidal coast where the sea can retreat more than a kilometre and return quickly across flat sand, and where the modern seaside holiday was partly invented. Deauville and Trouville are the surviving nineteenth-century resorts, facing each other across the mouth of the Touques with their boardwalks, bathing cabins and racecourse intact; the beaches west of them are wide, flat and mostly empty. The bay of Mont-Saint-Michel has the largest tidal range in continental Europe, around fourteen metres, and crossing it on foot is legal only with a licensed guide — the quicksand and the speed of the returning water are the reasons, and both are real. The invasion beaches of June 1944 run west from Ouistreham to the Cotentin: Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah, visited for a reason unrelated to swimming, with the artificial harbour at Arromanches still standing offshore in pieces. The water is Channel-cold at seventeen or eighteen degrees in August, and the light and the cliffs at Étretat further east are what the Impressionists came for. Practically: guided crossings of the bay must be booked and run to the tide rather than to convenience, the beaches are exposed and the wind is constant, and the season for anything resembling swimming is July and August. Oysters and mussels from this coast are the other reason to be on it, and the beds are visible at low water.

The two are different kinds of shore. Both sit on tidal water. Together they account for 7 km of shore. · computed from the 2 records below