Falaise has been our local town for 20 years.
A lovely local hospital (with views of William’s Castle) plus community services, transfer to the University Hospital in Caen when needed. Very good Médecins Traitants.
A sports centre with indoor and outdoor pools.
A thriving U3A.
Museums, concerts, cinema.
Good supermarkets, small shops and Saturday market.
A long and fascinating history.
Beautiful countryside all round.
A sense of strong ties with the UK (jumelée avec Henley). We have never felt like strangers and whilst we are not French we definitely feel that we are Normands. ![]()
And yes I am currently an expert on all things medical. ![]()
I can certainly vouch for Caen hospital
but it probably depends on the speciality. Great neurosurgeons!
Edit:
We’ve just got home from Caen on the A84. There’s a lovely Grand Frais (new,I think) near the ring road between @EmilyA 's route to Caen and ours ![]()
We have also had very good care from several departments in Caen CHU. The building is ghastly, but the new hospital is currently being built around it, to be opened by 2027 when the tower block will be demolished.
The cancer hospital Baclesse in Caen is excellent and DH had specialist treatment there which is only otherwise available in Paris and Nice.
Falaise has its own doctors, but doctors also come down from Caen for short periods (I think) and Urgences do consultations by phone with the specialisms in CHU which result in fast transfer if needed.
Our nearest hospital is Avranches but a number of specialists from Caen also do sessions there so there are quite a lot of exchanges between them. South Manche also has good doctors so it sounds as if Caen spreads its doctors around a bit!
Mezidon, the Crewe of Normandy.
Does that mean it’s for great trains, or it’s an armpit of a place - or indeed both?
Loadsa trains.
I spent a lot of time there and it wasn’t great. I found it quite scruffy.
There are some nice towns in the area like St Pierre sur Dives, Aunay sur Odon, Thury Harcourt to name a few.
I was lecturer at Alsager College of HE in the late Seventies and Crewe station was my lifeline to civilisation. Nevertheless, Crewe wasn’t as grim as the Potteries’ towns.
We have a maison secondaire not far from Avranches where there is an excellent poly clinic and hospital with an urgences dept. We have received excellent treatment including being referred from the urgences on a Friday to Caen UH by ambulance on Saturday for emergency brain surgery just after 8am on Sunday. There is a dentist in Brecey who gave me an emergency appt within 2 days and a surgery of a number of dr’s in the town. We have always received fast access to help when needed and the local population appear to live to very old age. It’s a lovely traditional area but with plenty of job opportunities it attracts people to the area for high tech and specialist services. Finally the weather we have been very fortunate as in general the weather has been good whenever we have been there though I accept it’s not always so.
I can second @AngelaR on that. The Tower is rather scruffy but the people working there are marvellous.
I was lost. I had been told to go to get a scan. I found the desk that checked me in for the scan but I could’nt find the scanning dept - remote from their reception. I asked a passing white coat who said he wold take me to the very door.
We arrived at - the reception desk! They laughed, said “Noooo ! We’ve already seen him!” So my guide took me to the actual scanning dept. It was a good walk, all round., 10 minutes of this kind person’s time.
The drivers of the taxi-ambulances take you right to the reception of the department you have to see [in the first instance] and collect you from there for the home run.
Bad news that dermatology dept at St Lo has closed … difficult to compute, that hospital being so big.
Our taxi people also seem to know every hospital and its departments in Lyon, Macon and Dijon.