The French capital famously shuts down in August. Where does le tout Paris go to? Lara Marlowe has her finger on the pulse.

It's August and the streets of the French capital are silent, the shop windows covered with paper. Small handwritten signs announce a date for reopening at the end of the month, or in early September. Just finding a dry cleaner or a place to make photocopies is an achievement.

Where have all the Parisians gone? The answer depends on their income, social class, interests and even politics. The "caviar left" go to Aix-en-Provence or the Luberon; the right, to St-Jean-de-Luz. The athletic, the church-goers and the sort of families who wear navy blue gravitate to the cooler climate of Normandy and Brittany. Nightclubbers and show-offs prefer the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. For the mega-rich, there is only the Côte d'Azur.

The most convenient seaside holiday destination for Parisians is Deauville, just two hours from the Gare Saint-Lazare, on the English Channel. The French writer Marguerite Duras lived for years in the Hôtel des Roches Noires in adjacent Trouville. The director Claude Lelouch filmed memorable scenes of A Man and a Woman on the beach at Deauville.

Once an exclusive hideaway for wealthy Parisians, Deauville has become more democratic since they installed slot machines in the casinos. It is now the favourite spot for Jewish people originally from north Africa, known as pieds noirs, who dominate the Paris garment district in Le Sentier.

Last week, the Irish broadcaster Éamon Dunphy celebrated his 60th birthday in a Deauville restaurant called Chez Julie. During the 1990 World Cup, Dunphy made himself unpopular with his countrymen by criticising the Irish soccer team manager Jack Charlton. "I have to go somewhere where nobody knows me," Dunphy told his friend, the French chef Patrick Guilbaud.

Guilbaud had trained at the Hotel Normandy and told Dunphy: "Go to Deauville. There are no Irish people there." Dunphy found the town "very charming, small and beautiful". He bought a traditional Norman house with half-timbered walls, where he has written two books and intends to retire one day. He spends six weeks there every summer.

Deauville offers more activities than most resorts: a 50-metre public pool, a spectacular golf course on the hills above the town, sailing, kite-flying contests . . . Dunphy's favourite activities are walking along "Les Planches" - a two-mile boardwalk - and the horse races. "In August, the best racing in Europe is here," he says.

The island of Belle-Île is a long trek from Paris. You must take the train or drive to Quiberon, on the belly of the Breton peninsula, then take an hour-long boat ride. Ferry crossings and small stone cottages amid heather-strewn moors must be booked at least six months in advance, none of which discourages tens of thousands of Parisians from escaping to the island, made famous by the actress Sarah Bernhardt. Today, Belle-Île is known as a resort for intellectuals.

Farther down the Atlantic coast is the Île de Ré, now connected to La Rochelle by a bridge. In summer, the flat island is packed with middle-class Parisian families. Aside from tourism, its chief industries are oyster beds and the production of gourmet sea salt.

The writers Guy de Maupassant and Colette, and post-impressionist painters, all loved the tiny Provencal port of Saint-Tropez. But Roger Vadim's 1956 film And God Created Woman - in which Brigitte Bardot danced a shockingly sensual mambo in a local cafe - established the reputation of "Saint-Trop" as a place of sexual promiscuity.