SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
When Americans think of and sometimes visit France's Normandy coast, it's often to go to the beaches where the landings of D-Day occurred. There is another Normandy coast, though, that is closer to Paris. And the Norman Riviera, as it's known, is also steeped in history but of an earlier era. Eleanor Beardsley takes us there.
(SOUNDBITE OF SEAGULL SCREECHING)
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: There's nothing like stepping off the train from Paris to arrive in Trouville-sur-Mer - only two hours but a world away.
It's magnificent. You can look out and see all the sailboats in the sea out there. And this is the English Channel. And the spectacular beach - massive. These Normandy beaches are so wide and so long.
HUGO ESTIVAL: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: Guide Hugo Estival is giving a walking tour along the boardwalk in front of the spectacular 19th century villas that line the beach.
ESTIVAL: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "None of this was here before 1840," he says. "This was a wild beach." For centuries, Trouville-sur-Mer was a fishing village, until a phenomenon known as sea bathing - therapeutic sea baths - would transform it into one of France's first seaside resorts.
ESTIVAL: It's a spa city, sea-bath city with casino, etc. - one of the first in history. So at that time, it was the semi-rendezvous of the whole bourgeoisie, the great families.
BEARDSLEY: As those families came up from Paris to take to the waters, they built the stunning hotels, villas and casinos that line the beaches along this coast. Today many are classified architectural monuments. The era was memorialized by painters.
KARL LAURENT: Monet, Boudin, Caillebotte, Renoir. (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: That's Trouville museum director Karl Laurent naming the Impressionists who painted here at the end of the 19th century, including Monet and Renoir. He says the artists followed the elegant crowds, taking the trains that began serving the seaside resorts here as the Industrial Revolution got underway.
LAURENT: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "The Trouville beach was the place to be for high society," he says. "And there was the sky, the colors of the sea and the changing weather that created different landscapes in the same day. And the Impressionists, who loved to paint in the open air, could do five and six paintings a day."
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BEARDSLEY: Trouville also drew some of France's best-known writers - Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Marguerite Duras. Today's sea bathers seem equally taken with the town.
Bonjour, madame.
LILIANE COLAU WEBER: Bonjour.
BEARDSLEY: Seventy-five-year-old Liliane Colau Weber (ph) is making her way up the beach, dripping wet after a swim.
COLAU WEBER: (Laughter).
(Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "I came to Trouville with my daughter. It's wonderful," she says. "It's a real Normandy town with loads of charm."
COLAU WEBER: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "And the people are nicer than in Deauville," she adds, referring to the newer, swankier beach town next door.
(SOUNDBITE OF WAVES CRASHING)
BEARDSLEY: Thirty-five-year-old Parisian Isabelle Mayenne (ph) is combing the beach for shells. She says Trouville is an authentic place.
ISABELLE MAYENNE: I like the spirit. It's more family spirit rather than commercial, and people are coming in Trouville to have a lunch in the restaurant.
BEARDSLEY: Small trawlers with their nets rolled on giant spools slip out of Trouville's tiny port and head out to sea late at night. Their catch is served on icy platters in restaurants and at the market along Trouville's port.
FABRICE BOUTARD: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: Fabrice Boutard (ph) and his 76-year-old mother, Francoise (ph), are doing a brisk trade at their stall. The farming family sells cream from their Normandy cows and their chickens and eggs.
FRANCOISE BOUTARD: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "In 1963, at 13 1/2, I was at work here," says Boutard. "I had just gotten my school certificate."
(SOUNDBITE OF RACKETS HITTING TENNIS BALLS)
BEARDSLEY: Tennis balls echo on Trouville's century-old courts along the boardwalk, a reminder of a favorite belle-epoch pastime. Fifty-nine-year-old Bernard Bessis has just finished a match. The Paris businessman says he's been around the world, but he keeps coming back to Trouville.
BERNARD BESSIS: There is something different from other place, the light, la lumiere, is very, very - it's specific to Normandy.
BEARDSLEY: There is something else that's special, he says. Because of Trouville's proximity to Paris, waves of people are always coming.
BESSIS: And it makes that you are meeting new persons every week, I would say. This is the magic of Trouville, from my opinion.
BEARDSLEY: He says this small Normandy town on the sea is still the place to be.
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Trouville-sur-Mer. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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