Villers sur Mer

New Year's weekend, C & I spent a wonderful few days in Normandy chez Jenny & Milkjam - but eventually it was time to make our way back to Paris.  It was quite a drive however, and given his tendency to drive ever-so-slowly, I decided that rather than having me turn into a crazy person when our 4 hour trip turned into a 6 or 7 hour trip, it would be better to break it up into two legs and stay overnight somewhere. 

I wanted to be near the coast yet not too far from the autoroute.  And the bigger cities like Deauville and Trouville were out for their prices - but thanks to the Internets, I discovered that just a few kilometers away, there are tons of other smaller and equally cute towns with fewer people and much more reasonable tariffs. 

Empty city streets

 Which is who we found ourselves staying overnight in Villers Sur Mer.

Their beautifully-decorated City Hall

It turned out to be a great choice - we had the beach to ourselves and watched the sunset over the water:

And then went back to our super cute hotel:

The next morning, we drove along the coast and passed a whole bunch of other cute buildings, with plans to hop back on the autoroute straight after....

I absolutely love how much the architecture varies from region to region.

Until we saw a sign for "Calvados tasting". Sign me up please!

So we took a little detour into this place. The owner offered us a free tour of the establishment, and it was a lot of fun learning about the different things one can do with an apple.  I personally am a big fan of pommeau.

 I really liked these oak barrels, with a giant spigot in the front to show how much was left:

Some of them were really old and had some amazing details:

Others contained some really nice vintages of Calva:

It's always interesting to me how they are able to keep so many different years on hand for so long.  This particular place had a promotion going on for those who wanted to buy a bottle from the year they were born/married/etc which I thought was kind of fun.

At the end, they offered us a tasting of two types of cider (apple & pear), the pommeau and a younger calvados. By that time I was feeling particularly "happy" so we bought a few bottles and then continued on our way back to Paris.  It was a great way to ring in the New Year, and I can only hope that 2012 will continue along the same vein!