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Veules les Roses Normandy

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180 kilometres north of Paris, on the Alabaster Coast of the Pays de Caux, nestles one of the “Plus Beaux”, Most Beautiful Villages of France. The tiny town of Veules-les-Roses Normandy looks like it was plucked from a story-book. If you like fairy tales, you will love it here!  After parking your car in the public lot, you set off on foot to explore this pretty place, and this is the first sight you see…

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…as you stroll along the Veules, the smallest river in France, at only a bit over a kilometre and admire the beds of water-cress, old moulins and cottages…

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…dwellings so sweet, they appear to be paintings on an old fashioned chocolate box.  This one is called Le Moulin des Cressonnières, ( Mill of the Water-cress) and that is water-cress growing in the shallow water.

Indeed, all of the architecture in this town pleases the eye, from the traditional thatched roof cottages with their iconic Normand colombage (half-timbering)…

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…to the more formal, highly ornamental Anglo-Normand style or rustic looking lodges.

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As you make your way toward the center of the village, you are never far from the tiny, shallow river La Veules, or  le fleuve, as it is called in French.

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While you’re in the village centre, couldn’t resist stopping at the lovely hotel Douce France for a cup of tea in their charming courtyard.

Veules-les-Roses is a very popular tourist attraction in the summer and can be quite crowded then.  But in spring it is just as quaint, and filled with so many flowers, they almost rival the roses for which the town is named.  So follow the flowers…

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…until you arrive at a place that drew Parisian society, charmed the Impressionists, as well as the poets and writers of the 19th  century, and still seduces us today: the white cliffs of the Alabaster Coast and the seashore at Veules-les-Roses. Can you believe that this is only a 2 hour drive from the greatest city in the world?

By Dawne Polis an American artist living in the French countryside – her work has been published in several books and magazines and is available through her agent, McGawGraphics or RedBubble (all photos copyright Dawne Polis).

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