Les Pins de Cesar

For overseas visitors the south of France gets the lion’s share of attention, but the north has charms of its own. And it doesn’t get much more classic Normandy than this — five minutes from the white chalk cliffs of Étretat, France’s answer to Dover, set in a nature preserve full of Austrian black pines, is Les Pins de César, a family estate converted into a stylish and luxurious boutique hotel and spa.

The rooms are classic country-house bedrooms, decorated with a bold color sense and outfitted with luxuries like freestanding tubs. They’re all different, conforming to the floor plans of these idiosyncratic structures, which for the most part are a century old — with the exception of the Chalet, a contemporary lodge-style house with a peaked roof and two and a half bedrooms.

Les Pins’s Nuxe spa is an extravagant one, featuring a 40-foot indoor pool, a Tylarium sauna, and an outdoor jacuzzi, as well as a full menu of massages and face and body treatments. Breakfast is an extravagant spread served in the winter garden, lunch and dinner are available by reservation in the hotel’s lounges, and the tea room and the bar provide further venues for refreshment. For a spell of rural relaxation, it’d be difficult to top.