We would like to visit Carnac, Mont Saint Michel, and Omaha beach/the museum/cemetery on the trip we booked for March 2022. We are flying into Orly. Is it feasible to get to these three places by train and not rent a car? Would you recommend staying in three different hotels, each close to the area we are visiting? Any other tips or suggestions for this type of itinerary? We are also staying in Paris for a few nights.

Thanks for any help with this.

In Carnac, getting from one site to the other is time consuming if public transportation is even available on that local level. A taxi might be possible, perhaps from Auray or Vannes.

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But renting a car might be more convenient'; a great deal of time can be lost waiting for the local bus from the train station to your next distination. Perhaps the rules have changed since the pandemic, but renting through Autoeurope and using Europcar as the provider of the rental meant that there were no one way fees.

Normally I'd take the train to Rouen and then hire a car from there. Driving in the area is slow work but not terrible. But including Carnac is way out on the left and I might look at Rennes as a base. Your choice then would be stay in Rennes city centre or in a B&B outside. I speak french and prefer to chat to the owner so I would chose outside and when you search on sites they will give you a clue as to language capability.

You will want a car. The Carnac area just about requires one. Luckily, there are TGV's to Brittany and back to Paris, so you probably will want to do as we did two years ago, TGV to Vannes (Rennes would also work), touring, then return TGV from St-Malo, which is reasonably close to MSM and your Normandy goals. Non-refundable very early purchase of TGV tickets is very economical, although the present state of travel makes any non-refundable purchase a bit of a gamble.

I have a trip report, if you want to read it. The Peabody Papers 2019, Paris and Brittany, Unmapped

I also recommend Stu Dudley's Brittany and Normandy write-up.

I posted. Moderation delay imposed (I posted a link). Look for it eventually.

Google cannot provide a public transportation option between Vannes and le Mont Saint Michel, which leads me to believe that a train and/or bus routing will be complicated and time consuming. According to ViaMichelin, it takes just over 3 hours to drive between those two points.

Thank you everyone for your replies! I really enjoyed your trip report, AJPeabody. So much good information!

I found a relatively fast train from Montparnasse to Auray - would it be a better choice to rent a car there rather than Vannes to explore Carnac?

We were thinking of returning the car before we leave that area and taking a train to Pontorson to stay overnight before visiting Mont St. Michel. Would you suggest staying in St. Malo overnight instead? Could we take a cab or shuttle to the Mont from there?

Not sure yet if we will definitely do Normandy. Would you suggest eliminating that in order for the two people I am traveling with who have never been to Paris to visit Versailles and more of the major sites in the city?

My husband has driven in Ireland and England before but his health has declined so I am concerned that he will be too fatigued to take the wheel for the full tour of Brittany. Any votes of confidence on the ease of driving in these areas if I attempt to drive for several days? It sounds like the GPS might be a challenge especially in these remote areas.

Also, day 2 of our trip will be a Sunday in March - would sites in Carnac or Paris be closed on a Sunday in the off season? This will make a difference on if we stay in Paris for 2 nights at the start or end of our trip.

Thanks again!

My thoughts, there used to be a bus from the train station inSt Malo to Mont Saint Michel but I don't know if it still runs https://www.saint-malo-tourisme.co.uk/
Covid huh

I would stay in St Malo big car park under the cite, or stay at Dinan which is even more fantastic

I would drive to the Mont myself and drop off at Rennes after a drive through at Fougeres (accents may apply)

Normandy is fantastic but the sites are far apart and it helps if you speak the lingo. Paris has higher density sites. If you prefer countryside/sea/world war 2 bits then stay out of Paris. If not, go to the city of lights.

One tool you may find useful (but not perfect) for planning is Rome2Rio

Driving in rural France should be much easier than England or Ireland if you are from the US or elsewhere that drives on the "right" side of the road. Driving on the opposite side of what one is accustomed to is very disorienting. Make use of GPS if you are the navigator for the driver.

Can't comment on the value of going to Carnac as I am ignorant about that. I had to look it up to figure out why one would go their... for the ancient stones I guess?

Mt. San Michel and Normandy (Bayeux) are certainly wonderful places to visit. If you can, try to get to Mt. San Michel early morning to avoid the crowds. I would recommend including Arromanche and the little museum there. Fascinating history.

Of course, there is a certain logic to going to these outlying places once you have fully visited Paris (including Versailles) so you have a difficult decision if your friends have not seen much of Paris before and you have. Best of luck with your planning.

Arromanche / museum in Normandy, of course. Not Brittany/Mt. San Michel....

I recommend investigating cars by making a trial reservation (quit before entering credit card info) if you want automatic rather than manual. Getting an automatic transmission is especially difficult outside of large centers (Brittany is mostly rural, from the car rental point of view).

I found the driving outside of towns very easy. In towns I depended upon the car's GPS system, which was not set up for spoken directions. I have since become proficient with Google Map's voice directions from my cell phone. I would recommend it if it works in France. As for ditching a car and trying to combine trains, busses, cabs, I would discourage that. The time overhead in returning a car and in making the connections and sorting out the logistics is not worth it.

As for closure days, we found Sundays and Mondays there to be pretty restrictive, Saturday afternoons could also somewhat of a problem. Check out every place you want to be for open days and closure hours, including museums, restaurants, car rental locations and transit schedules. We did our south coast to north coast travel day on one of the closure days.