Casino Barrière de Deauville

Deauville is the most elegant seaside resort in Normandy, and its casino, opened in 1912, is the building that best sums up the town's character. It stands on the seafront at the end of the boardwalk, between the beach and the town centre, an imposing, white building in the style of the early twentieth century, with a long facade, a monumental entrance and a stage that has hosted generations of performers. Deauville was a modern resort when the casino opened, created in the 1860s on the marshy shore opposite Trouville by a group of investors under the Duc de Morny, half-brother of Napoleon III, and its casino, its racecourse and its grand hotels were designed to attract the wealthy of Paris.

The casino was built by Eugène Cornuché, a restaurateur and showman who also ran the famous Paris restaurant Maxim's, and its opening in 1912 coincided with the high point of the Belle Époque. In the years before the First World War, Deauville was a favourite of the fashionable world, and the casino was the centre of the season, with evening gambling, dinners, shows and balls. The designer Coco Chanel opened one of her first boutiques in the town in 1913, and the resort's style, with its striped parasols, white tents on the beach and the elegant crowd of the boardwalk, became an emblem of seaside chic. The casino has been renovated and enlarged many times since, and it is now run by the Barrière group, which also manages several hotels in the town.

Inside, the casino offers the traditional games, such as roulette, blackjack and poker, along with a large hall of slot machines, and it has restaurants, bars and a theatre where concerts, shows and comedy are staged. The building is well worth a look even for those who do not gamble, for its architecture, its decoration and its place in the town's social history, and some of the public areas can be visited without playing. As in most French casinos, smart dress is expected in the gaming rooms, and visitors must show identification and be of legal age.

The casino stands beside Les Planches, the famous wooden boardwalk laid along the beach in the 1920s, with its row of beach cabins bearing the names of film stars who visited the American Film Festival, held in the town every September since 1975. The beach itself, with its fine sand, parasols and bathing huts, is the main attraction in summer, and the town has a racecourse, the Hippodrome, which hosts major horse races in August, as well as sales of yearling horses. The Église Notre-Dame and the Parc du Thuit offer quieter spots, and the neighbouring port of Trouville-sur-Mer, a fishing town with a lively fish market, is a short walk across the river Touques.

The casino suits visitors interested in the history of the resort, evening entertainment and architecture. It is open late in the evening, and the opening hours and entry requirements are best checked with the casino beforehand. A stroll along the boardwalk and a visit to the building take about an hour, and an evening here is a classic way to experience Deauville.