9 Most Beautiful Places To Retire in Northern France For English Speakers

If you’re dreaming of a retirement filled with cider, sea air, market days, and walled towns where nothing much has changed in 400 years, the north of France could be the perfect spot to retire to.

Many people drive through northern France to get to the south, which is why property is cheap, the towns are quiet, and you’re never more than a couple of hours from a ferry.

On my last reconnaissance mission, I came back with a notebook full of hilltop citadels, Flemish giants, a perry appellation I’d never heard of, and some simply stunning places to retire in Northern France. 

9 Places to Retire in Northern France

This list doesn’t include the big names like Honfleur, Bayeux, or Étretat because, although they are, without a doubt, gorgeous, they also come with a rather large price tag and a deluge of tourists. These are the nine I’d actually move to.

No 1 Montreuil-sur-Mer

Montreuil-sur-Mer is a walled town high above the Canche Valley in the Pas-de-Calais, and despite its name, it sits about 9 miles inland. You can walk the full circuit of the ramparts in under an hour, and the views over the valley are worth the climb on their own.

Explore all your hotel options here

This is Victor Hugo’s town. He set most of the first volume of Les Misérables here, and it’s where Jean Valjean lives under the false name of the respectable mayor, Monsieur Madeleine. 

The town has been dining out on it ever since. 

Every summer from late July into early August, around 500 locals put on a son et lumière on the citadel ramparts with horses and cannon. Montreuil was also the headquarters of the British Army in France from March 1916 until April 1919, and Field Marshal Haig’s statue still stands on Place Charles de Gaulle.

The Saturday market fills the main square, and La Grenouillère just down the hill has a Michelin star. Head inland into the Seven Valleys, and you’ll find the one corner of the region with a thriving English-speaking community if you need it.

READ MORE: The walled cities of France worth exploring 

No 2 Cassel

Cassel is a Flemish hill town in the Nord, perched on a mount 176 meters high that rises out of a completely flat plain like something dropped there by accident. The French voted it their favorite village in 2018, and once you’re up there looking out toward Belgium, you understand why.

Explore all your hotel options here

The Romans were here first, and it was fought over by the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch before being annexed to France in 1678. The old castle is gone, and a working windmill stands on the summit in its place. 

What I love most are the giants. Reuze Papa was built in 1827 and stands over six meters tall, dressed as a Roman warrior, and Reuze Maman came along in 1860 in a red dress and gold cape. 

They’re paraded at carnival, and Cassel has two, one before Mardi Gras and one on Easter Monday, because bad weather ruined the winter one in 1901 and the town decided to just have another.

This is estaminet country, so proper Flemish food. Potjevleesch, which is potted cold meats set in jelly, carbonnade flamande, waterzooï, and maroilles cheese, washed down with genièvre. 

The Thursday market is small, so do your real shopping in Hazebrouck. 

Trains run to Lille in around 45 minutes, and houses go for roughly €1,994 a square meter, which makes Cassel the best value on this list for a town with this much character.

READ MORE: France’s favorite villages as voted by the French

No 3 Laon

If you want a medieval town without giving up a hospital, a station, and a supermarket, Laon in the Aisne is the answer. The old walled town runs along the top of a narrow ridge with the modern town spread out below, and the cathedral is visible for miles across the plain.

Explore all your hotel options here

Laon was the capital of the last Carolingian kings, from Louis IV onward. That ended in 987, when Hugh Capet seized the town with help from the local bishop and moved the capital to Paris. 

Notre-Dame de Laon was built mostly in the 12th and 13th centuries and was completed around 1235, making it one of the earliest Gothic cathedrals in France. It has never drawn the crowds that Chartres and Amiens do, which means it’s quieter and has cheaper housing. 

There’s a free medieval festival in early September with jousting and fire spectacles projected onto the cathedral’s front, followed by a month of classical music. 

Markets run at the Halles on Thursday and Saturday, and this is Maroilles country, so try the tarte au maroille; it’s a bit of an acquired taste, but you have to try it.

The funicular that carried people from the station up to the old town closed in 2016 and was never replaced, so the upper town means a steep climb or a car. Worth knowing at retirement age. 

In return, Laon is the cheapest historic town on this list by a mile at around €1,239 a square meter, with a direct train to Paris in about an hour and a half.

READ MORE: The stories behind France’s most visited cathedrals 

No 4 Senlis

Senlis in the Oise is a walled royal town about 25 miles north of Paris, wrapped in three forests and full of cobbled alleys that film crews have been using for decades. It’s the prettiest town on this list.

Explore all your hotel options here

The history here changed the country. In 987, the assembly that elected Hugh Capet king of France met at Senlis, and he was crowned a few weeks later at Noyon just up the road. Long before that, it was the Roman town of Augustomagus.

About half of the seven-meter wall the Romans built in the third century is still standing, along with an arena and the ruins of the royal castle. The cathedral was built between 1153 and 1519, and its 13th-century spire stands around 78 meters tall, visible across the plain of Valois.

Markets run on Tuesday and Friday mornings, and Chantilly with its château and its cream is six miles away. The forests are the real luxury, all three of them inside a regional nature park, which is walking country of the first order. 

Two things to weigh up. There’s no railway station in Senlis, so you connect by bus from Chantilly or Creil, and it’s the priciest place on this list. But Charles de Gaulle airport is 20 minutes away, and if you plan on flying back to see family, nothing else here comes close.

READ MORE: The scandalous history of Château de Chantilly

No 5 Barfleur

Barfleur is a granite fishing port right on the tip of the Cotentin peninsula in the Manche, and one of the official Plus Beaux Villages de France. Around 540 people live here. The Germans withdrew in 1944 without destroying it, which is why it still looks the way it does.

Explore all your hotel options here

For such a small place, it has done a lot of damage to English history. On 25 November 1120, the White Ship sailed out of this harbor, struck a rock just outside it, and went down with about 300 people aboard. 

Among them was William Adelin, the only legitimate son of Henry I. The succession crisis that followed became the civil war we call the Anarchy, and it started a few hundred meters off this quay. 

Tradition also holds that the Mora, the ship that carried William to England in 1066, was built here. There’s no proof, though the helmsman was a Barfleur man named Stephen, and a bronze plaque was set at the harbor mouth in 1966 to mark the 900th anniversary.

The food here is the wild mussel. The Blonde de Barfleur is named for the golden sheen on its shell, and these mussels are the largest wild mussels in France, dredged from small boats between June and October. 

Markets are Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings. Three kilometers north stands a lighthouse 75 meters tall with 365 steps, first lit in 1835; the coastal path runs straight through the village, and Cherbourg with the Portsmouth ferry is half an hour away. 

The Manche has the highest concentration of British residents anywhere in Normandy, and Barfleur is even twinned with Lyme Regis.

READ MORE: The 10 prettiest coastal towns in France 

No 6 Coutances

Coutances is a hilltop town in the Norman bocage, ten minutes from the sea, and to my mind the best value on this list for what you actually get. A cathedral, a hospital with an emergency department in town, a railway station, and one of the most respected jazz festivals in France, all for around €1,927 a square meter.

Explore all your hotel options here

The cathedral was built between 1210 and 1274, replacing an earlier Romanesque church consecrated in 1056, with William the Conqueror in attendance. The lantern tower rises more than 57 meters, and on a clear day you can see it from Jersey. 

It came through the Wars of Religion, the Revolution, and 1944 essentially intact, which in this part of Normandy is close to a miracle. 

Then there’s the Jardin des plantes. A local man bought the land in 1824 and left it to the town in 1850 on the condition that it be used to grow medicinal plants for the poor. On summer nights, they light the whole thing up and put on music.

Jazz sous les Pommiers has run every May since 1982 and draws serious names. If you want something older, the nearby fair at Lessay was founded by monks in the 11th century and still draws over 350,000 people every September. 

Thursday is market day, the beaches at Agon-Coutainville are seven miles away, and Paris is three hours and twenty minutes by train.

READ MORE: 7 of the oldest buildings in France

No 7 Villedieu-les-Poêles

The name means God’s town of the frying pans, which tells you almost everything. Villedieu-les-Poêles in the Manche is a working craft town rather than a preserved one, with a station on the Paris line.

Explore all your hotel options here

Henry I granted the town to the Knights Hospitaller in the 12th century, the only Hospitaller commandery in Normandy. By the early 14th century, the coppersmiths had their own corporation, recognized by the kings of France. 

Locals are still called Sourdins, from the French word for deaf, because generations of hammering copper pans left half the workforce hard of hearing. 

Once every four years, the town holds the Grand Sacre, a procession with Knights of Malta in full ceremonial dress moving between nine decorated stations. It was instituted in 1655 and is probably the only surviving Fête-Dieu in Normandy.

The bell foundry is the thing to see. Cornille-Havard was founded in 1865 and still casts bells in its original workshop, using the original furnace. It cast eight bells for Notre-Dame de Paris in 2012 and 2013, including one weighing 4.2 tonnes, then three more in 2024 after the reopening. 

It also made the victory bell for the 2024 Olympics. You can walk in and watch them work. Market day is on Tuesday, Mont-Saint-Michel is not far, and houses go for around €1,551 per square meter.

READ MORE: Top tips for visiting Mont Saint-Michel

No 8 Domfront-en-Poiraie

Domfront sits on a rock spur above a river gorge in the southern Orne, inside a regional nature park, and it’s the cheapest place on this entire list at roughly €1,250 a square meter. Eleven towers of the old walls are still standing, along with the ruins of the keep.

Explore all your hotel options here

The first fortress went up in 1010, and Henry I built the stone castle in 1092, using Domfront as the base from which he took the English throne. Eleanor of Aquitaine held court here, and her daughter Eleanor, later Queen of Castile, was born in the castle around 1161. 

Down by the river stands Notre-Dame-sur-l’Eau, built around 1020, with a sorry story attached. In 1836, an engineer knocked down over thirty meters of the nave to build a road. It wasn’t protected until 1889.

Now for the reason I’d move here. This is Perry country, and Poiré Domfront has its own AOP. It has to be at least 40% Plant de Blanc pears, ferments in the bottle for a minimum of six weeks, and comes out golden, sparkling, and about 4% alcohol. 

There’s a signposted route through the orchards, and the local Calvados is made with pears in it too, by law. Every other August the town puts on three days of jousting and costumed parades that pull 25,000 people, with the next one due in 2027. 

Friday is market day, and 15 minutes down the road is Bagnoles-de-l’Orne, the only thermal spa town in the whole of northwest France.

READ MORE: 7 French medieval gems that are a portal into the past 

No 9 Lyons-la-Forêt

Lyons-la-Forêt in the Eure is a Plus Beau Village de France sitting in the middle of the largest state forest in Normandy, about 20 miles east of Rouen. Half-timbered houses, a square, an old timber market hall, and 10,700 hectares of beech trees all around it.

Explore all your hotel options here

There was a ducal residence here as far back as 936. Henry I built the stone castle and died in it on 1 December 1135, apparently after eating too many lampreys. Between 1050 and 1298 no fewer than 110 royal charters were issued from the castle, and Richard the Lionheart, Louis IX, and Charles IX all came here to hunt. 

A fire in 1590 destroyed most of the medieval town, which is why almost everything standing today is 17th- and 18th-century, including those wonderful timber halles.

Film people love it. Both versions of Madame Bovary were shot here, Jean Renoir’s in 1933 and Claude Chabrol’s with Isabelle Huppert in 1991, because the village looks so much like Flaubert’s fictional Yonville-l’Abbaye. 

The composer Ravel stayed on and off between 1917 and 1922 and worked on Le Tombeau de Couperin during that time. There are two markets under the halles, a workaday one on Thursday and the big one on Sunday with a cheesemonger, oysters, and a rotisserie chicken van. 

Neufchâtel, the heart-shaped cheese from the Pays de Bray, comes from just up the road. Houses average around €1,874 a square meter, and Dieppe, with its crossing to Newhaven, is an easy drive.

READ MORE: The 10 most famous cheeses in France

Retiring To The North of France

The north is a different proposition from the southwest, where I live. There are far fewer of us up there. Around 2,200 British residents across the whole of Hauts-de-France, against more than 7,000 in the Dordogne alone. If you want to walk into a village and find a book club and a pub quiz already running, this isn’t that.

The rest is the same France everyone moves here for. Market day, a bakery that knows your order, and neighbors who’ll have you round for an apéro before you’ve unpacked. If you’d rather have the sunshine and the vineyards, my pick of the southwest is over here. À bientôt et merci beaucoup!