My friend and I are arriving on the ferry in Rosscoff, then we are planning on hitting Mont-St-Michel, Bayeux, and Caen before heading to Germany. What is the best way to get around in Normandy? Are there buslines and we can buy tickets when we arrive, or are the trains a better bet? Also, to get to Heidelberg (or Frankfurt, whichever we decide on), would it make much difference taking a train or bus, or is it best to head to Paris and catch a plane?

There were just some great trip reports on tours around Normandy. If you search the archives, I'm sure you'll find them.

When we were in Normandy, we liked haveing a car to use, to get around to all the great little villages. Is a car an option for you?

Also, perhaps you can do a day bus tour from a central town (Caen? Bayeux?), and use the town as a base.

How much time do you have for Normandy?

Roscoff, of course, is in Brittany. For your destinations, it might be better to get a ferry to St-Malo, Cherbourg or Caen (all have services from the UK, and Cherbourg has a service from Rosslare in Ireland).
In France, there are very few long-distance bus services - they do not try to compete with trains like they do in Britain.
Roscoff is served by a branch line which joins the main line at Morlaix. From Morlaix, trains go to Rennes where you can change for St-Malo or for Bayeux and Caen. For Mont-St-Michel, you need to get a bus. From Caen and Bayeux, there are buses to the coastal towns.
To go onward to Germany, there is a good train service from Bayeux and Caen to Paris, then the new high speed line goes from Paris towards Frankfurt.
For train schedules in France and Germany, try www.bahn.de.

Well, the timing of the ferry to Cherbourg wasn't quite right, so we went ahead and got tickets to Rosscoff. (And yes, we know that's in Brittany, but since our destination is Normandy we've been including it in the "Normandy leg" of our trip). We had been thinking about getting a bus from Roscoff to Mont-St-Michel on the Sunday we arrive, and continuing on by bus to Bayeux that night. If the schedule doesn't work out, we'll just head right to Bayeux - we just thought Mont-St-Michel would make a nice stop along the way. We're trying to get a day tour of the D-Day beaches for Mon or Tues, then running around the other day and Wed. (using Bayeux as our base) to see the tapestry, castles, museums, etc. before heading to Germany on Thursday. When I was in Spain, I mostly used buses instead of the trains and usually bought the tickets the day before or the day of without problems. Is that the case in France as well?

That's good to know about the trains between Bayeux & Paris and Paris & Frankfurt, suz12. Would we need to get tickets ahead of time or can we get them when we arrive in Bayeux? I had tried looking at bahn.de, but either the site or my computer was not playing nice last night.

Thanks for the help, guys!

Marie, I'm afraid you're in for a long day.

www.sncf.fr shows only one bus a day from Roscoff - leaving 13:35 arriving Morlaix 14:05. (Oops, that's depending on the month of travel: you might have another option, leaving 15:31 arriving 15:59 Morlaix, then a TGV to Rennes leaving 16:15 arriving 18:00; in any case, be sure to check sncf.fr for the schedule for your exact dates of travel.)

To get to Bayeux, assuming you took the 'first' bus, you would then take the TGV leaving 14:18 arriving Rennes 16:00, and thence another train leaving 16:50 arriving Bayeux 19:46.

The Mont St. Michel option is a bus leaving Rennes 18:30 arriving at the Mont 20:00. (You also have a second choice of train leaving Morlaix for Rennes with this option, since you could take the later, and cheaper, ter train leaving Morlaix 15:11 arriving Rennes 16:54.) Personally I'd only bank on getting as far as Rennes for your first night, and then decide the next day whether you want to take in Mont St. Michel or head straight to Bayeux. Enjoy your trip.

Thanks for the help, Sue! It's not as bad a day as it looks, since our ferry doesn't get in til 11am June 10 to Roscoff. So we can sleep in. The only bad thing is we won't accomplish much that day other than travel - but we can deal with that. I went to sncf.fr and the trains for June 10 can get me there in 5 1/2 hours - do you think we could get those tickets in Roscoff or is it best to reserve them ahead of time?

There are lots of buses or trains from Roscoff to Morlaix. It's one of those branch lines where the SNCF only runs trains at busy times, and buses at other times, but there are definitely several services every day. I can't imagine why the SNCF would show only one service a day, but the full timetable is on www.bahn.de.
The most difficult part of this itinerary is from Rennes to Bayeux and Caen where there really are only two or three trains a day. This shouldn't really be a problem if you're willing to fit the French pace of life: eating lunch or dinner really is more important than rushing to catch the next train.

There's a regional busline called www.busverts.fr that sells passes for unlimited travel in Basse-Normandie. This might be useful if you want to design your own tour.

Well, I think our big issue is getting to Bayeux on Sunday night - even if it's late - so as long as it's doable, we'll be ok. By the time I posted here last night, I was really beginning to worry that that wasn't possible, but you guys have been a big help!

My most important remaining question is if it's possible to get these tickets (particularly from Rennes to Bayeux) ahead of time, or should we just wait and get them on arrival in Roscoff or Morlaix?