breakfast in france
 

we are driving around brittany in late may and most of the hotels we are staying in have 9-10e per person charge for breakfast, which sounds exorbitant. don't eat a big breakfast anyway, saving the calories for lunch and dinner. any suggestions on how to get a simple coffee/ croissant breakfast away from the hotel.

Stop at the local bakery!

We found that to be a standard price for coffee and croissant in a hotel or bed and breakfast.
Just go for a walk and find a café to get a less expensive option. If you sit outside you'll pay more, in fact if you sit rather than stand at the bar, you'll pay more.

Any café (stand at the bar instead of sitting down - it costs less) or salon de thé, or grab juice and something from a market.

Just note that a simple coffee and croissant breakfast will consist of one cup of coffee and one croissant, no coffee refill.

thank you for the information. do bakeries serve coffee?

Some do

In large enough towns, there is likely to be a cafe or a bakery open early serving what you are looking for. These are usually found near the main square or at transportation hubs like the train station. In very small town, there may be none of these places open when you need it. Be sure you have an option before saying "no" to the hotel breakfast. If you are sensitive to smoke, realize that some of these places are quite small and even though the smokers sit outside, there is not much difference between the outside and the inside. The bakeries may or may not serve coffee, and even if they do, they might only have a tiny standing counter occupied by the regulars. Sometimes, I walked around town only to find the only places open for breakfast were cafes where they closed the inside for mopping and the only places available were the outdoor seating.

I agree that is a very normal price for breakfast at hotels in France, just about anywhere. I never eat breakfast, so really don't care, although I do want coffee. But it is real easy to get coffee in France at any cafe, and I like to sit in a cafe reading the paper in the morning, anyway.

YOu really want more a chain bakery, not a real one. As the chains will serve coffee and sometimes have a few tables, but it is pretty baSic, of course. Paul is one of the nicer chain bakeries, there are cheaper ones. Brioche Doree is another chain. http://www.briochedoree.com/

Most don't look like that photo.

But some regular bakeries do have coffee, also, they'll just cost more probably.

thank you for the information. do bakeries serve coffee?

sorry for the resend and thanks very much for the responses