MRS

Need help planning a trip to Normandy/Brittany

We are planning to visit Normandy and Brittany at the end of May after a short stay in Amsterdam and Brugge. As much as I dislike frequent hotel changes, I could not come up with a better itinerary, it involves 6 or 7 different hotels. Please, critique my schedule and may be suggest better solution.
Thanks you very much.
Itinerary Detail
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Day 1 and 2 ()
Arrive to Rouen (210 miles drive from Brugge) THUR, FRI
FRI explore Rouen stay 2 nights
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Day 3 ( 113 miles drive ) SAT leave Rouen and drive to Honfleur, to spend 2 nights
Rout from Rouen to Honfeur
village of le Hanourd.
village of Veules les Roses*
Etretat***-
arrive Honfleur to stay for 2 nights
=====================================
Day 4 and (70 miles) drive (SUN)
Explore Honfleur in the morning.
and take a drive :
Trouville-sur-Mer, France
Cabourg, France
Beaumont-en-Auge, France
Pont-l'Évêque, Calvados, Lower Normandy, France
Lisieux Cathedral, Lisieux, France
Cambremer, France
Crèvecœur-en-Auge, France
come back to Honfleur, spend night
================================================== ======

Day 5 (MON)
drive to Bayeux (60 miles) for 2 nights stay stay 2 nights
Visit Bayeux and Caen
================================================== ==

day 6 visit D- day sites (80 miles) (TUE)
Esplanade Général Eisenhower, BP 55026, 14050 Caen, France (Mémorial de Caen)
Arromanches-les-Bains, France
Omaha beach, Vierville-sur-Mer, France
Pointe Du Hoc, Cricqueville-en-Bessin, France
Bayeux, France
================================================== ======
Day 7
drive (WED) to Mont Saint Michel (111 miles), stay one night
Head out towards Mont St Michel:
Carentat,
St Lo
Villedieu.
Mont St Michel stay 1 night

================================================== ======

Day 8
(THUR) (35 miles) drive to Brittany
Staying around Dinan, days 8 9 10 11 12 may be 13
( 4 knights, may be 5)
Places to visit
Dinan, France
Saint-Malo, France
Dinard, France
COTE D’EMERAUDE
Pointe du Grouin, France
Saint-Lunaire, France
Pointe du Décolle, Saint-Lunaire, France
Forte near La Latte, Plévenon, Bretagne, France
Cap Fréhel, Plévenon, France
Saint-Brieuc, France
Plouha, France
Pointe de Plouha, France
Plage Bonaparte, France
Île de Bréhat, Île-de-Bréhat, France

=========================
Day 12 or 13 drive to Paris, day 14 leaving for US

StCirq

The way you've printed out your itinerary is confusing to me. Day 3 you say you're staying in Honfleur for 2 nights, but Day 4 you're on your way elsewhere. Day 8 looks utterly manic.

louloujr

There are some very beautiful small "preserved" towns in the inland rural part of Normandy. One I recall is Le Bec, worth a stop and perhaps one night stay at the local inn. Lost in time, wonderful food, small abbey, and beautiful countryside. Honfleur not worthy of two days in my view, but is a picturesque harbor town, and (most memorable to me as a shopper) has a wonderful, handmade French table linens store in which one could putter for quite some time! In addition to the US cemetery, there is a hidden away German cemetery near the Normandy beaches -- worth seeing in stark contrast to the US memorial at Omaha Beach.

P.S. The tapestries in Bayeux are not to be missed!

kja

I have only been to a few of these places, but from what little I do know, I think your trip sounds wonderful.

I think you hare planning on only about 1/2 day to explore Honfleur. If so, that might be enough for your interests. But if you hope to visit any of the town's small museums, you might want a bit more than just one morning. (I see that you'll have some evenings there, too, but the museums won't likely be open then.) BTW, I was there last May, and thought the town's small park/garden well worth an hour or so - its rose arbors were in full bloom, along with some other lovely flowers - delightful!

If time becomes an issue during your time in Brittany - days 8 to 12 or so, if I'm reading correctly - the Forte la Latte might be a place to consider dropping. I enjoyed it, but in retrospect, I would have traded my time there for an extra hour at Cap Frehel.

> As much as I dislike frequent hotel changes, I could not come up with a better itinerary, it involves 6 or 7 different hotels.

Given your plans, moving around makes sense to me - you could well save time by avoiding backtracking. (But I might not be the best judge here, because I generally choose forward movement over returning to a base whenever it optimizes my time to do so.)

Enjoy!

Michael

We stayed at a B&B near the Pointe du Grouin which allowed us to make day trips to the Mont St. Michel, Dinan, St. Malo. You might want to take a look at my trip report that starts in Ghent; click on my name to find it.

MRS

.

StCirq, sorry if I confused you, I will try to express myself better in the future.
Michael, thanks you for sharing, it is a very good and detailed trip report, I enjoyed so much reading it.
kja, thanks for the recommendations, I too think moving around is unavoidable and much better than backtracking.

Thanks all.

FrenchMystiqueTours

If you want to have a look here's my trip report about exploring near Dinan: http://tinyurl.com/82azcyh

And here are some threads you can reference for the Normandy part of your trip:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic....html#39058384

ttp://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g187179-i607-k4965972-Driving_to_Normandy_from_Paris_round_trip_Itinerar y_advice-Normandy.html#37142728h

I agree with StCirq that the way you've described your itinerary is confusing in places. For the Brittany portion of your itinerary you shouldn't need more than 2 bases and could possibly get by with only 1 base.

MRS

Hello everyone, and thank you very much for everyone’s input. I’ve made changes to our plans, and rented an apartment for 4 nights in Honfleur, we will make decision there to make a daytrip to Rouen or spend time somewhere else. This clears the confusion I’ve created on days with days 1,2,3,4.

We then will drive to Bayeux for 2 days as we planned before, and now I came to Brittanie’s portion of the trip. I had originally planned to make an overnight stop at Mont St Michel on our way to Brittany, and then spend 4-5 nights around Dinan, but now incliend to change my mind to make MSM a day trip.

Now I have a question about Saint-Malo, what if instead of staying around Dinan we stayed there? I remember kerouac’s incredible pictures from “Saint Malo when it shivers”. I found nice apartment there. Is it a good idea, what are the pros and cons? We are going to be there in the begging of June, is it really windy there then?

FrenchMystiqueTours, you are the reason(great reason!) we are planning to leave Brittany day earlier, your Fontainebleau report from a year or two ago hunting us, we are thinking to leave our Brittany base one day earlier (probably stopping on our way at Rennes), arrive to Fontainebleau in the evening spend a night and next day there, then drive CDG drop the car at night, spend a night there before flying home in the morning.

flpab

louloujr, In addition to the US cemetery, there is a hidden away German cemetery near the Normandy beaches -- worth seeing in stark contrast to the US memorial at Omaha Beach.

Can you tell me more about this? I so appreciated seeing the German cemetery in Belgium. They were buried three to a grave and their loved ones had planted vegetables around their stones.
We are staying in a B&B in Bayeux in May. The innkeeper booked us dinner at La Fringale our first night. I can't wait to taste the oysters, scallops and cider!

StCirq

Oh dear, I guess 4 days in Honfleur might work for certain itineraries, but I think you'll be totally bored after two days. It's a very small town, and once you've seen Ste-Cathérine and the couple of museums and the quais and the plaque and had a plâteau de fruits de mers on the quai, you'll be done. I guess you can go to Deauville and Trouville one day, but what about the rest? Four days in Honfleur, as much as I love the place, seems over the top,, given your overall schedule. WAY over the top. Two days there is more than sufficient.

I like St-Malo well enough, but for me it's just good enough for an afternoon by the beach and to see the main town - nothing terribly attractive to get me to spend the night there and get to know it. Dinan was far more interesting to me. Windy? Maybe, maybe not. It's really windy here in DC tonight.

kja

> I had originally planned to make an overnight stop at Mont St Michel on our way to Brittany, ... but now incliend to change my mind to make MSM a day trip.

Like many people, I thought staying on Mont St. Michel was overpriced - and I am SO glad i stayed! I truly enjoyed walking around after day-trippers had left and seeing it in the light of the setting sun and later, lit against the night sky - so evocative! For me, worth every penny.

> Now I have a question about Saint-Malo, what if instead of staying around Dinan we stayed there?

I'm glad a spent an evening on St. Malo, and probably would have enjoyed a half day, but I had no regrets about leaving it rather quickly. I spent several lovely hours in Dinan, which I thought was a gem. I don't know the area well, but if I had to pick one of the two for a base given my limited experience, Dinan would win hands down for my tastes. I thought Dinan had more charm and it offered a greater variety of interesting things to see. I also found it easier to park in Dinan and to get into and out of it. Unfortunately, I don't know what I missed with such short stops.

> probably stopping on our way at Rennes

I loved Rennes! BTW, if you have any interest in museums that show local culture and customs, do consider visiting the Musee de Bretagne - I thought the impressive collection was extremely well displayed and signed and the building itself well worth seeing.

Hope that helps!

FrenchMystiqueTours

I think spending 4 days in Honfleur as a base to explore the area can be fine depending on what you want to see and do. Aside from spending time in the town itself you can do Deauville/Trouville, you can do cidre and cheese country in the Pays d'Auge (you could easily spend 2 days exploring the countryside in this area), you can do Rouen (as you planned) and maybe the abbeys of Jumiège and Saint-Wandrille-Rançon, you can do Etretat and Fécamp and the scenic coastal drives in that area and you can also do what I like to do and just use the Michelin map as a guide and get lost driving around the countryside. There are loads of scenic country drives in that area that have never seen a tourist. If you follow my tips about how to read the icons on a Michelin map you can make up stuff as you're driving along.

In regards to Saint-Malo vs. Dinan, personally I enjoy Dinan more (I find it much more charming) but it brings up the question of what makes a good base and that is determined by what you want to see and do. You read my report and you saw all the places I was able to see based in Erquy and that was in December, with short daylight hours. We generally didn't leave the house until around 10:30 and returned by 5:00 and usually had a sit down restaurant lunch.

On your last day in Fontainebleau if you're not going to visit the palace then you know there are well over a dozen towns I could recommend visiting in that area.

I agree with kja that a night on MSM is wonderful. Understand there will be a new shuttle in place soon and you'll have to park on the mainland. Here is info about the new shuttle:

http://accueilmontsaintmichel.fr/english/index.html

MRS

Thank you for the comments, everyone is so helpful. We will have 4 nights /3 full days in Honfleur and plan to spend it exploring the region as much as we can. We too, usually start around 10am, come back around 5-6 for a break before going to dinner, or having dinner at home when we rent an apartment. I get tired of eating out day after day, I’d like to get local produce at the markets and cook a little, not too much. We also prefer to go for a stroll before and after dinner, rather than driving somewhere more than 5 miles. I am looking for a home bases with a stay longer than two nights, but it is not always possible. Will look for a place to stay at MSM, and may be Saint-Malo not the best choice.
Thanks for recommendations, I ‘will come back with more questions.
MRS

MRS

Does anyone have information on hours of operation for the MSM shuttles from the new parking lot? I went to http://accueilmontsaintmichel.fr/english/index.html website and could not find anything, they only say they have 24 hours 7 day a week for the disable or working on MSM.

StCirq

8 am to 1 am:

http://www.blogpressmontsaintmichel....ccueil2012.pdf

MRS

StCirq, thank you very much, i don't think they have this info in the english flyer, but who sad they should? Thanks, you are the best.

StCirq

I didn't see any mention of it on the official website, either - even in French. That's why I kept digging. I hope it's accurate.

annhig

bmk

Gretchen

I haven't seen if you've altered the two days in Bayeux, but I think it is worth much more than that. Honfleur--2 days is PLENTY, even exploring the area. Two days in Rouen might even be a bit much.
Bayeux and the beaches needs the 4 days, since you have them.

Gretchen

Someone was asking about the German cemetery. It's one claim to fame is that it is the burial place of the commandant and some of the German soldiers who conducted the massacre of the town of Odour sur Glane, near Limoges.