NORMANDIE for 5 days visiting Mont Saint Michel
 

Hello everybody,
we are in a couple - October 2014 - 5 days (is enough?) . planning to visit Mont St Michel. my questions : sleep in MSM? or somewhere else? Which other places to visit? Where to park the car? We will be Leaving from Paris and back to Paris. Thanks for the help

If you are driving you will have a lovely time if the October weather chooses to cooperate. Sometimes it does, sometimes not. In Normandy, places like Etretat (chalk cliffs), Honfleur (charming port), Deauville (huge beach), etc. are excellent, but also just beyond Mont Saint Michel, you shouldn't miss the walled city of Saint Malo.

Look up all of this in guidebooks.

Personally, I'd include a trip to Bayeux to see the Bayeux tapestries. Remarkable, and >1000 years old.

We stayed in a B&B about midway between the Normandy war cemetery and MSM. Very nice accomodations, and well situated.

Have a look at this thread for ideas:

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

My wife & I have visited Normandy & Brittany several times. I developed an itinerary for this region that describes our favorite villages, cities, sites, castles, restaurants, scenic drives, etc. If you would like a copy, e-mail me at [email protected] & I'll attach one to the reply e-mail. I've sent my various itineraries (I have ones for other regions too) to over 5,000 people on Fodors & aol (really).

Stu Dudley

First three villages that popped into my mind were those mentioned by Kerouac: Honfleur, Etretat, Dieppe. Also stopped in Bayeux and Caen. We had great weather in October. Stayed in 3 private chateaux in Caen, Dieppe and Mortagne-au-Perche, very reasonable. Five days is about right, easy loop to/fro Paris. Pick up car upon leaving Paris, parking in these towns was not difficult, and at the chateaux, we were the only guests!

Coutances has one of France's greatest cathedrals - makes a nice few-hour stop en route to D-Day area from Le Mont.

Where to sleep - some pricey hotels on the island itself but right across the causeway on the mainland is a gaggle of motel-like hotels - and Pontorson the nearest city has lots of budget hotels as well (six miles from Le Mont).

St Malo is extraordinary.

thanks you all!!!!Stu, I am sending you an e mail. tks

https://www.google.com/search?q=ste+...bih=1040&dpr=1

Check out Ste Mere Eglise, a small town near the D-Day Landings - famous for this church where an American paratrooper got tangled on the church steeple and dangling there for a while - now memorialized in a stained glass window.

Nice brief stop en route to somewhere else.

>>Check out Ste Mere Eglise<<

My wife studied in France while she was in high school in about 1966. A group of American students visited Ste Mere Eglise and the mayor of the town gave each of them a small piece of fabric that was clipped from parachutes used by the 82nd Airborne Division that liberated their village - at great cost. My wife still has the piece of fabric in her scrapbook.

Stu Dudley

They still love Americans in St-Mere-Eglise!

At Mont Saint Michel, I managed to get a very good deal at the Mercure in the hotel zone, but if you can't get a cheap deal, there are other more economical hotels in the zone. There are several free shuttle stops in that zone that take you to the Mont, and they run until after midnight. In fact, I made a photo report of Mont Saint Michel by night if you are interested: http://www.anyportinastorm.proboards...t-michel-night

Even in August I was able to just stop by the gaggle of motels kerouac talks about and find rooms - but yeh get a better deal perhaps by booking in advance and I guess they could fill up though there are so so many.

Lovely view of the Mount gloriously lit up at night like erouac dependably superb photo shoots prove.