“Honfleur is a delight in its shabby but beautiful way, and L”Écrin fits in well,” says a visitor to this 18th-century manor house. It stands up a hill, in a garden dotted with statuary.

“Seven days of great comfort in a superb location” were enjoyed at the Cesne family”s holiday hotel in a pieds dans l”eau position on the Cotentin peninsula, south of Cherbourg.

“A truly delightful place. The garden and park provide pleasure from every point,” says a visitor: in 1976, this 18th-century château, a historic monument in a large park near Bayeux, was turned into an elegant hotel (Relais & Châteaux); extensive renovations were completed in March 2016.

“Still the best and still our favourite,” says one of the many fans of this restaurant-with-rooms, now owned by Stephanie and Olivier Bicot.

“We thought it excellent value, and a very French experience, so close to the UK,” says a report.

“A peaceful spot, stunningly beautiful,” say visitors to the Petiteau family”s 20th-century “Anglo-Norman” half-timbered mill house.

Near the superb ruins of a Gothic abbey, in a lovely valley south-east of Coutances, this grey stone restaurant-with-rooms (Logis de France) is always admired: “Welcoming, efficient, very comfortable”; “Amazing value”.

This Logis de France (also Relais du Silence) is a short walk from the famous tapestry (really an embroidery).

“A wonderful antidote to faceless mid-Atlantic hotels”, this beautiful Renaissance château stands in its own lovely park on the eastern edge of Alençon.

This sympathetically converted 16th-century presbytery “felt more like a home than a hotel” to visitors. Central, but “with no extraneous noise at night”, it combines traditional style with contemporary touches.