job816_2

Thanks Jespere and Emvic. Good advice/suggestions

Emvic - did you stay MSM and if so where? I have beem waiting to hear back from Les Terrasses Poulard for a week now.

job816_2

Jespere - you have solved my dilemma. I really like country settings and also love historical ruins so we will plan the day visiting some castles enroute to Bayeux. Thanks a bunch. For anyone interested, I looked into Les Andelys and Chateau Gaillard and found this dutch site on top castles. You can search by country.

http://www.topcastles.com/landen.php

This site is also good:

http://www.casteland.com/indexuk.htm

Jespere

Oh, and I had trouble getting my hands on a Michelin 513 (Normandie) roadmap before we left and made do without it, having Green Guide and several other books & maps with us.

Finally found my 513 in an Omaha Beach museum, and it really helped - that, plus mapping our routes on michelin.com (predicts time and tolls, if any) and all the advice I received here!

emvic

job816 -- We stayed in the Hotel Du Guesclin. It is part of the Logis chain -- see www.logis-de-france.fr/uk. It is a two star hotel and we found it quite comfortable -- not luxurious by any stretch. The room was neat and clean, although somewhat small. The bathroom was very large and sparkling clean. The room had one small window through which we could see the Abbey if we stood right at the window and looked up over the rooftops. The dining room has an impressive wall of windows overlooking the bay. We had a good dinner from the 17 Euros fixed price menu -- I had mussels and my husband had oysters as a starter. Both were very fresh and delicious. We both had the main dish of salt-fed lamb, with pomme frites and white beans. Apparently, this is the "classic" Mont St. Michel meal. They also had higher priced fixed price menus. All in all, we enjoyed our stay immensely, and found staying on MSM overnight well worth it.