Does anyone have a recommendation for a private car company to take three people from Deauville to Bayeux? We need to meet our guide there but don’t want to rely on the train.
Also any recommendations for places to visit from a home base of Deauville? We will have three days there after our tour of the battlefields.
Visit and perhaps stay in Honfleur instead of Deauville.
No recommendation for the transfer; perhaps your accomodation in Deauville can advise about a taxi company? I'd reckon on 150 euros.
As for day trips from Deauville: Honfleur is a must see in the area (short bus ride away), Cabourg is pleasant too (coastal train ride).
And I'm not quite sure I understand the logistics of the trip: you spend three days in Deauville after a battlefields tour, but need to go back to Bayeux after? I'd also say that three days in Deauville is a lot, the beach is nice but it's otherwise quite boring and expensive in my opinion.
I liked walking around Deauville for several hours, and the same for Cabourg, but I agree that 3 nights is a long stay without a car to facilitate wider explorations.
Thank you all for the advice. I may have made a mistake getting a house in Deauville for 5 nights thinking we could visit towns close by without a car. I am hoping that taxis or Uber drivers will be available to go places that are a short distance away. We want to have a relaxing time and only have one full day planned with the tour of the battlefields.
Don't worry, I wouldn't call it a mistake. Deauville is a very relaxing place. Combined with Trouville across the river there are plenty of places to have a walk, restaurants (pricey), great beaches. The little train that goes to Cabourg opens up some interesting exploring too.
Personally I don't like it much, because I don't like to see on holiday the same people I see every day in my Paris neighbourhood, and the place does give off a "snobbish Parisian" vibe, but as a foreigner you're unlikely to pick up on it.
I very much enjoyed the one-day van tour of invasion sites I took in 2017, but it was a full-day tour that didn't leave time on the same day for sightseeing in Bayeux other than walking around the historic center. The town of Bayeux has a lot of other offerings to enjoy: an excellent invasion museum (you could spend hours there), the cathedral, the tapestry, a walking tour offered by the toutist office, and I believe there's a small lace museum or something like that. So a return to Bayeux for a day of sightseeing is very worthwhile.
Since I stsyed in Caen rather than Deauville, I'm not sure about the travel times you'll face. I just don't know whether Etretat is practical as a day-trip without a car, but you can definitely get to Honfleur (bus), Cabourg (also bus, I think) and of course Trouville (city bus or even walking).
So I don't think you'll have any trouble filling your time. If you do, nearby Caen is a rather large, industrisl city basically flattened during the war and thus rather short on historic charm. However, it has two old abbeys and the very large Peace Museum, which can be a full-day affair if you're interested in the causes of WWII and the Cold War aftermath as well as the war itself.
A short train ride from Deauville is the major pilgrimage town of Lisieux. I haven't been there, but it seems to have some historic architecture as well as the important cathedral.
