La Ferme Saint-Siméon

In the 1860s this was a cheap cider farm and inn on the hill above Honfleur, and the painters who stayed here - Boudin, Monet, Courbet, with Baudelaire passing through - spent their time arguing about how to paint the estuary light. The farm is now a five-star Relais & Châteaux hotel of around thirty-five rooms, but the half-timbered façades and the view down over the mouth of the Seine are unchanged.

Rooms are divided between the original farm buildings and quieter garden pavilions, most decorated in a soft, coastal Norman register. The spa occupies a converted artist's studio in the old kitchen garden and makes use of seawater and local botanicals. There are two dining options: a formal restaurant working with Norman seafood, cream and orchard fruit, and a simpler bistro.

Honfleur's old harbour, one of the most painted scenes in France, is a ten-minute walk downhill. Deauville and the Côte Fleurie beaches are nearby, and the hotel is an easy two hours from Paris, which makes it a long-standing weekend fixture.