TravelerKaren

Fodorites: Always appreciate the valuable recommendations from you and am asking for help again.
After a 9 day Basque country tour with some friends, we are planning to visit Bordeaux, La Rochelle & some areas in Brittany and would appreciate your opinions on our initial itinerary. Any suggestions on number of days, locations, etc are welcome. I've planned 3 nights in each location and would like your feedback on this.
We end our tour in Bilboa and plan to take a bus or private driver from there to Bordeaux.
Days 1-3 Bordeaux (day trip to St. Emilion)
Days 4-6 La Rochelle (pick up car when leaving Bordeaux); day trips to Rochefort & area; Chateau Roche Courbon, Cognac & Ile de Re, La Flotte & St Martin de Re)
Days 7-9 Vannes (day trips to Rochefort-en-Terre planned & Poul Fetan, Gacilly)
Days 10-12 Pont-Aven (day trips to Quimper & driving tour Benodet/Ste Marine & others)
Days 13-15 Dinan (day trips to Combourg & Vitre; drive to Fort La Latte along Emerald Coast and end in Cap Frehel)
Days 16-18 St. Malo (day trips to Mont St Michel, Dinard and/or Rennes)
Days 18-19 Train to Paris (overnight) and then leave for US the next day)
The France portion of the trip is planned for May.
Many Thanks, Karen

AJPeabody

Why not take the TGV from St Malo to Paris during the day, overnight in a hotel, and avoid the risk of a train glitch causing you to miss your flight home? Or even add a whole day at the end of your trip in Paris?

cheska15

It worth considering that Vannes is a busy town to drive in and out from. It is a nice place and the old town and Jardin does Ramoarts are worth seeing.

Rochefort-en-Terre Is an hour at most and the same with Pont Aven. Best time to visit is between 12-2 if you can as there are no tourist buses at that time.

If you are planning on visiting La Gacilly for just a look around you will only need a couple of hours. If you have time Malestroit is worth the detour.

Depending on where you stay in St Malo parking will be required. We had parking at our hotel. We dropped the luggage off, and then the hotel gave directions to the car park. It will be a test if your nerves. If you plan to leave St Malo you maybe better parking in the public outside space rather than hotel parking.

We were in Dinard today and it is nice. Be aware that again parking can be difficult.
Rennes wasn’t that exciting except for Parc Thurbor.

My only concern is that you are not giving yourself a lot of time and will be doing a lot of driving and will be a very rushed trip.

TravelerKaren

AJ Peabody: That is our plan to get to Paris on day 18 and stay overnight there. Get our flight home the next day.

TravelerKaren

Cheska: Thank you for this advice. If we don't stay in Vannes, where would you suggest we stay? We would be looking at hotels that have parking available. We have driven all over Italy and France and have encountered these unavoidable parking issues. Most of the towns we have visited usually have large car parks. Does St. Malo and Vannes have car parks? We probably wouldn't visit Rennes unless we ran out of other places to visit. What would you eliminate to make our trip less rushed? I noticed from your post that you are staying 5 days in Dinan. Are you finding it easy enough to drive from there to other towns? Where else are you staying in Brittany?
Many thanks for your advice.

shelemm

You will be nearby one of the most unique landscapes of France, the Marais Poitevin aka The Green Venice: la Garette-Sansais, Arcais, Coulon, St Hilaire-la-Palud. You can try your hand at paddling your own barque (traditionally done standing up, like a gondola). During a full moon, I went on a night tour by barque from the port at la Garette-Sansais.

In Brittany, there are the unique architectural ensembles called les enclos paroissiaux. A micro region of dozens of villages: Pleyber-Christ, St Thegonnec, Guimiliau just to name three.

TravelerKaren

shelemn: Thank you for these suggestions. These places were not on my radar. I will check them out.

AJPeabody

Just before the covid, we were in Brittany. Trip report may give you some ideas. St. Malo has a big car park.

The Peabody Papers 2019, Paris and Brittany, Unmapped

cheska15

TravelerKaren. My husband is in charge of logistics 🤣. I tell him where we should visit and then he puts it on a map, I picked if we stayed in Auray what could we do. Then he worked out then he worked out the distances. This works for us even though time consuming. You might like to use Michelin maps to give you an idea. Then you can work out what base will suit you best.

I also did a rough itinerary using a calendar as to work out what days we would be visiting places, as a lot of businesses in towns are closed on Mondays.

St Malo has large outdoor car parks.

Vannes has parking in and Indigo car park at Republic. We were always able to get a park. Keep in mind there is a big market on Saturday mornings.

For short stays we definitely use hotels. It is not clear if you are moving often or not. As you are used to driving in Europe the traffic in Vannes won’t bother you.

ANUJ

Dinan and St Malo are quite close to each other, I would pick one base without needing to move (we chose Dinan back in 2019 during our Brittany holiday). I really enjoyed Ploumanach (and the pink granite coast). I'd include Concarneau and Fougeres to the list of places to visit. Enjoy your trip.

cheska15

We called into Comburg today and apart from the Chateau and the lake, there isn’t much else to see. We did have a great lunch at L’Hipothese. I had the Fillet Bar Snacke and it was really good. Served on a bed black rice with a butter sauce. My husband had a lamb shank, and that was good too. I then had a Crème Brûlée, and three glasses of wine for €61.

TravelerKaren

That is something we were debating since the areas to visit are all fairly close. My original itinerary for 2020 that got delayed due to Covid had Ploumanach too but we are not sure about adding that since we want to keep our total travel days to a month. We are spending 9 days in the Basque Country prior to heading to Bordeaux so need to re-evaluate our stops.

TravelerKaren

cheska: Thank you so much for your replies. I also appreciate your heads up about Comburg. Will be following your TA as you travel this area.

TravelerKaren

AJ: I already have your trip report on my laptop. I had originally planned this trip in 2020 but it was canceled due to covid. I need to review it again because we had to modify our original itinerary since we are now going to the Basque country for 9 days before heading to Bordeaux. We need to limit our time to a month so will be re-evaluating our stops. Thanks again.