Another alternative trip we're researching for this August. We want to see what everyone else wants to see -- Mont St Michel, Fougeres, Les Andelys, Dinan, Honfleur etc. If I'm reading the guidebooks -- Lonely Planet and Cadogan -- correctly, it will be wall to wall people, everywhere, which will make us miserable. True?

Should we stick with Orkney & Shetland, or even Newfoundland, and leave this trip to the off season?

I think that the guidebooks are correct, particularly along the coast.

I crowds trouble you, August isn't a good time to go. But of your target places, I only can speak with particular knowledge about Honfleur. The numbers are highest on weekends, and when the Seine cruise boats dock, and the latter dates can be checked on the Honfleur tourist information Web site. The crowds follow a pretty predictable path through only a part of the histroic district of the town. Step off that path on a weekday in August, especially in the early morning or after 6 p.m., and things become much less dense, not quite normal, but almost.

I doubt that you'll be bothered by crowds in Brittany, which still seems to be under the tourist radar. Les Andelys? Probably not, for the same reason. Mont St-Michel, you bet!

Underhill,

The French go on vacation in August, and if the rows of hotels along the coast near Quimper are any indication, there are a lot of people there.