Rouen or Honfleur?

Honfleur is really charming -- lovely to walk around and there are a couple of interesting small museums. We stayed two nights several years ago, on our Normandy trip, and used it as a base to visit Etretat.

On the same trip, we stopped in Rouen on our way back to Paris, and found it super crowded, loud and we couldn't wait to get out of there. The cathedral is lovely, though I found it underwhelming. I know lots of folks who loved Rouen, so maybe it's just that we were tired at the end of our trip.

I depends on what you want to do. If you are in the mood for a more relaxing trip (crowds still happen), do Honfleur. But if you want some state of the art museums, history, and haute cuisine - do Rouen. I spent a month in Rouen back in 2018 and fell in love..from there I visited Honfleur for weekend trips as well as Caen.

We did both places during a 2019 trip, definitely Rouen and I'd add Cabourg if it wasn't already on your list. Rouen cathedral and pedestrian areas were lively and entertaining. If you're comfortable with driving/parking/walking in the cities, I'd do coastal towns and some cities if time permits.

Honfleur…….we did both a few years ago and I would say that Honfleur has a unique charm to it that is hard to beat. We walked the harbor, had a lovely meal a street or so over under an awning while we watched a rainstorm…..and walked through a chocolate shop and saw the incredible church there where the ceiling has so obviously been built by the shipbuilders that lived there. It does seem obvious after being there that artists have loved to paint here on the docks as the light coming in off the water is lovely…….we stayed in Hotel Absinthe and it was a great location. BTW…..you will love Bayeux……such a great town….don’t miss its cathedral and make a plan to walk…..easy….to the British WW2 graveyard there…..the Brits were the only nation out of the US and Germany that allowed the families to bury their dead with a personal message on the gravestones…..and each grave has also been lovingly groomed with flowers where the American and German graves are plain in comparison. The messages will touch your heart. The tapestry is cool too!……go see Etratet too!!!!

Honfleur is lovely. There is a uniqueness about it. When you visit you can see why many of the Impressionist were so taken by the place. It's small and filled with small alleys and passages. If you visit there is a wonderful panorama view of the town and the Seine from Mont-Joli. It a nice walk up through the town past fading aged mansions to a park. You can also make the quick drive up. Oh, and if you go please eat a few kouign-amann for me.

I've been to both and really don't know which to recommend to other folks. Rouen has a large, gorgeous (rebuilt) historic center that seemed better able to deal with visitors, but I didn't observe a lot of them, so perhaps I hit a particularly non-busy day. Honfleur, being smaller, had a much higher concentration of visitors, but it was still appealing. There wouldn't have been enough to keep me busy for a full day, though, whereas Rouen certainly is worth an overnight if you're interested in museums. The wrought-iron museum was a pleasant surprise.

Perhaps you could manage to see Honfleur in less than a full day, spending the rest of that day on some activities in Bayeux and then going to Rouen on a different day.

This is really helpful. You guys rock!!!