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Rugged walking country, with great views from the Roche d’Oëtre.

Market day (Tuesday) is the best day for a walking tour of this historic town and its neighbouring cantons.

The Perche is particularly suited to mountain biking, with marked trails at various levels of difficulty (maps available from Mortagne-au-Perche and Domfront tourist offices). The terrain is also suitable in the Suisse Normande and at Amayé-sur-l’Orne.

Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll created the park and gardens for Guillaume Mallet, for whom Lutyens also built the house in 1898. Between here and the sea, the valleuse (dry valley) is filled with acid-soil-loving plants such as rhododendrons and azaleas. Artists including Cocteau, Calder, Monet and Braque were frequent visitors in their day.

Normandy’s largest regional park spans 2,350 sq km (900 sq miles) of Basse-Normandie and Pays de la Loire, with scenery that ranges from deep forests to gently rolling hills, and from marshlands to meadows. The park aims to preserve rural traditions by promoting local arts and crafts, agriculture, forestry and outdoor activities.

The wetlands that characterize this park stretch 1,250 sq km (480 sq miles) from Les Veys to Lessay. The eastern marshes are home to many species of migrating birds and small mammals, which can be watched and studied from hides and nature reserves.

Between the Beauce plains and the Pays de Bocage, this 1,820 sq km (700 sq mile) regional park was created in 1998. The high ground is forested; the lower slopes are planted with orchards and hedges. Châteaux and manor houses pepper the landscape.

There’s plenty for adults as well as children in this landscaped park surrounding the Renaissance château at Clères. Created in 1920 by naturalist Jean Delacour, the garden is populated by flamingoes and exotic ducks, while in the park, animals such as kangaroos, antelopes and gibbons roam in partial freedom.