Calvados, Normandy
A private car and an English-speaking chauffeur from your Paris hotel or any of the three airports to Caen, William the Conqueror’s capital and the natural base for the D-Day landing beaches.
From central Paris, one way: Executive Eco from €445 · Premium Van from €700 · tolls included
Instant price
Tell us where you are going and the price appears straight away. Nothing is charged online. A real person confirms your transfer in writing, usually within the hour.
Fixed price, agreed before you travel.Child seats, tolls, meet and greet and waiting time all included.
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Caen was William the Conqueror's city long before it was anything else. He and Matilda of Flanders married against the Pope's wishes, and the price of absolution was two abbeys. He built the Abbaye aux Hommes and she built the Abbaye aux Dames, at opposite ends of the same town, and they are both still standing. He is buried in one and she in the other. Between them, on a rock in the middle, he raised a castle whose walls enclose one of the largest medieval fortresses in Europe. You can walk into it for nothing and it still takes a good half hour to cross.
The second thing that happened to Caen was the summer of 1944. The city was a first-day objective for the British and Canadian forces landing on Sword Beach, fifteen kilometres north. It took until the middle of July, and by the time the fighting stopped roughly three quarters of Caen had been flattened. The abbeys survived, partly because thousands of civilians sheltered inside them and the buildings were marked as refuges. Almost everything between them was rebuilt afterwards in the same pale Caen stone that once went into Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London.
That history is why the Memorial de Caen exists and why most visitors come. It is also why Caen makes more sense as a base than as a stop: the landing beaches, the cemeteries and Bayeux are all within forty minutes of it, and none of them are easy to reach without a car.
Your chauffeur meets you where you are, at the time you choose. There is no queue, no shared shuttle and no meter running.
Any address in Paris or the suburbs. Your chauffeur is at the door at the agreed time and helps with the luggage.
Your chauffeur tracks the flight and adjusts to delays at no extra cost. Meet and greet in the arrivals hall with a name board, or kerbside if you prefer.
The Portsmouth crossing lands fifteen kilometres north of the city. We also collect from Caen station and from the cruise berths at Le Havre and Cherbourg.
Caen is about 235 km west of central Paris and takes roughly two hours thirty by road, almost all of it on the A13 through the Normandy plain. It is a straightforward motorway run with one obvious stop if you want one.
The exact distance depends on your Paris address, so the calculator above works on the real road distance between your two addresses rather than a rounded number. Tolls, fuel and parking are already inside the price.
There is a direct train from Gare Saint-Lazare that takes about two hours, and for Caen alone it is honestly the sensible choice. The car earns its keep the moment you want to go beyond the city. The landing beaches run for roughly eighty kilometres of coast, the cemeteries and batteries sit between villages, and there is no public transport that joins them up. Most people who book us for Caen are really booking us for what is around it.
The city itself is a comfortable day. Add the coast and it becomes two.
The best museum in France on the Second World War, opened in 1988 on the site of a German command bunker. Allow three hours, and more if you take the guided beach tour that leaves from it.
William's fortress, with ramparts you can walk for free and two museums inside: the Musee de Normandie and the Musee des Beaux-Arts, which has a serious collection of Italian and French painting.
Saint-Etienne, where William is buried, and La Trinite, where Matilda is. Both are free to enter and both are among the purest Romanesque buildings in Europe.
The one pocket of old timbered streets that survived the bombing, now full of restaurants, with the pleasure port and the flamboyant spire of Saint-Pierre a few minutes away.
If you have a single day and you want the war history rather than the medieval city, the usual shape is the Memorial in the morning, lunch in Bayeux, and the beaches and cemeteries in the afternoon. Tell us that when you book and your chauffeur will plan the driving around it.
Two and a half hours each way is a real journey. It is worth getting the small things right.
Baby seats, toddler seats and boosters, fitted before you get in. Tell us the ages when you book and they will be in the car.
Three large cases in the Executive Eco, seven in the Premium Van. If you are moving on to a ferry or a cruise with full luggage, take the van.
Giverny, Rouen and Honfleur all sit on or just off the road to Caen. A short stop costs nothing but time, and the time is yours.
One fixed price per kilometre of real road distance. No surge, no night surcharge, no airport supplement.
At 235 km the fare is set by the distance, not by the minimum, so the calculator above will give you the real figure straight away. If you want the car and the chauffeur to stay with you for the day around the landing beaches rather than simply dropping you in Caen, say so when you ask for a price and we will quote that separately and in writing before you book anything.
About two hours thirty for roughly 235 km, west on the A13. Leaving central Paris between eight and ten in the morning can add half an hour.
Yes. Sword Beach is fifteen minutes from the city, Arromanches and Omaha around forty-five. Tell us which sites matter to you and your chauffeur will work out the order and the driving times before you set off.
For Caen on its own, probably. Gare Saint-Lazare to Caen is about two hours direct. The car is worth it when you want to reach the coast, when there are three or more of you, or when you are carrying luggage on to a ferry or a cruise.
2.00 EUR per kilometre in the Executive Eco and 3.20 EUR per kilometre in the Premium Van, on the real road distance from your exact address. Put your pickup point into the calculator above and you will have the figure in a few seconds.
Yes. Your chauffeur waits in the arrivals hall with a name board, follows the flight and adjusts to delays without charging for the wait. Kerbside pickup is fine too if you prefer it.
Yes. The Portsmouth crossing docks about fifteen kilometres north of Caen and we meet arrivals there, as well as at the cruise terminals in Le Havre and Cherbourg.
Yes, at no extra cost. Baby seats, toddler seats and boosters, fitted before you arrive. Just tell us the ages of the children when you book.
Up to three passengers with three large cases in the Executive Eco, and up to seven passengers with seven large cases in the Premium Van. If you are close to the limit, take the van.
Tell us where you are staying and when you want to leave. You will have a fixed price in writing and an English-speaking chauffeur at the door.
