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Towns & cities · Somme
Saint-Valery-sur-Somme
A medieval town overlooking the Somme estuary, listed among the most beautiful villages in France.
View full page →The most beautiful seaside villages
Colourful fishing harbours, flower-lined lanes running down to the beach and white houses facing the ocean: France's coastal villages have a special charm, far from the bustle of the big seaside resorts.
This selection tours the coasts, from the Bay of the Somme to Normandy, from Brittany to the Île de Ré and the Gironde estuary, all the way to the Catalan, Languedoc and Corsican villages of the Mediterranean. Come out of season if you can, to enjoy their calm.
13selected sites
6regions
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Towns & cities · Somme
Le Crotoy
A seaside resort facing Saint-Valery, the only town on the Bay of the Somme that faces south.
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Villages · Seine-Maritime
Veules-les-Roses
Veules-les-Roses is a little jewel of the Alabaster Coast. This small seaside resort enchants with superb Norman thatched cottages, gardens overflowing with roses and hydrangeas, and mills of the past.
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Villages · Manche
Barfleur
A former Roman-Viking port, Barfleur had nine thousand inhabitants in the time of Norman power and remained the leading port of the Cotentin in the Middle Ages.
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Villages · Ille-et-Vilaine
Saint-Suliac
Set in the centre of a tangle of narrow lanes, lined with fishermen's houses or granite walls enclosing gardens, the church of Saint-Suliac overlooks with its imposing bell tower an old cemetery with which it forms a parish close, rare in Upper Brittany.
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Villages · Charente-Maritime
La Flotte
A fishing community since Antiquity, the village developed in the eleventh century around the castle of the Mauléon family.
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Villages · Charente-Maritime
Ars-en-Ré
In the western part of the Île de Ré, just after the narrow isthmus sometimes submerged by the great equinox tides, Ars-en-Ré lies near the salt marshes of the Fier d'Ars.
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Villages · Charente-Maritime
Mornac-sur-Seudre
The Seudre is a small coastal river of 70 km whose estuary is part of the Marennes oyster basin.
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Villages · Charente-Maritime
Talmont-sur-Gironde
Built on a small rocky promontory jutting out over the north bank of the Gironde, the tiny village of Talmont gives off a refreshing impression of serenity with its narrow lanes flowered with hollyhocks and lined with pretty little white houses enhanced by shutters in pastel tints.
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Villages · Pyrénées-Orientales
Collioure
A little Catalan port of colourful houses nestled in a cove of the Vermilion Coast, immortalised by Matisse and the Fauvist painters in the early twentieth century.
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Villages · Aude
Gruissan
Built in concentric circles around the remains of a medieval castle, the village of Gruissan nestles between lagoons and the Mediterranean, also famous for its chalets on stilts.
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Villages · Corse-du-Sud
Piana
The village of Piana overlooks the Gulf of Porto, close to an exceptional place: the calanques of sumptuous beauty marrying the blue of the sea with all the pink and red tones of the granite cliffs.
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Villages · Corse-du-Sud
Bonifacio
A fortified town perched on an impressive limestone cliff at the southern tip of Corsica, whose citadel overlooks a deep natural harbour.
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