My wife and I are going to be in Paris in September '16 and want to visit/tour Normandy and would like advice on any tour companies and possible hotels as we want to spend 2 days there. We like small groups and maybe a private guide. Any suggestions? Thanks!!

Nothing specific but Bayeux is by far IMO the best base - near the major American D-day sights - several companies offering mini-bus tours to the beach highlights and also about the only town in the J-Jour (D-Day in French) area not decimated during the invasion - neat old cathedral and the famous Queen Matildha's Tapestry hanging in a museum (documenting the 1066 Norman Invasion of England by William the Conqueror of Normandy).

Depending on your price point the Villa Lara or the Hotel Churchill in Bayeux are both nice and are located where the mini buses start the tours. In addition, the Churchill offers a tour to Mont St Michel. Also many good restaurants can be found in Bayeux.
We took a full day tour with Overlord Tours and were very satisfied. The Overlord website offers many different tour options depending on your interests.

I liked Normandy Sightseeing tours, excellent. I did a group tour, however, not a private guide. The group wasn't that large, not sure your threshold for size. Maybe 8.

Many minibus tours will pick you up at your hotel or selected hotels - the hotel desk may have brochures of ones they work with.

We just returned from a wonderful trip to Normandy and Paris. We stayed in Hotel Particulier Poppa and loved it. Highly recommend it. We used Sean Claxton with Normandy Insight tours for our full day DDay tour and he did a great job.

candj- you did stay in Bayeux right and not Caen another possibility to hook up with tours but a modern city rebuilt from war damage and not the authentic old city like Bayeux which somehow escaped the conflagration of carpet bombing.

We also stayed in Bayeux, two times for tours of Normandy...last year and the year before. Sean Claxton was our guide both times....he originally worked for Battlebus, then for Overlord last year! Now I see from candj83 that he is with Normandy Insight tours. He is wonderful, charming, informative, and full of personal stories. Highly recommend requesting him if you choose Normandy Insight tours. A small, private tour of 6 people was what we choose through both companies. Quite personal and somewhat customized according to the interests of the pax on the tour. We stayed at the Reine Mathilde the second trip and at the Hotel Churchill the first trip. Both are good. The Churchill is more deluxe and more expensive, the Reine Mathilde was charming and more basic, but we enjoyed them both and would recommend either, depending on how much you want to spend. Bayeux is a delightful town, and the tapestry is well worth a visit.

PalenQ, Yes, we did stay in Bayeux and enjoyed it very much. Dodi66, glad to hear you enjoyed Sean as your guide as much as we did. I think he runs Normandy Insight now, but I could be wrong. With Sean, we drove our own personal vehicle and he guided us around.

One WW2 site I enjoyed is a bit off the beaten path - the parish church at St-Mere Eglise - a small town near the Embarcation Beaches and where in the steeple of the local church one U S paratrooper famously got entangled in and dangled from one of its towers - today there is a memorial stained-glass window in the church to memorialize this event:

https://www.google.com/search?q=st+m...FY0LkgodueIMMw

one hour (100 kms) from Bayeux is the beautiful town of Honfleur.

Great to hear that Sean has his own company now, candj83. He mentioned wanting to start up when we toured with him!! We have given his name to several people, now I will have current information on him!! Yes, PalenQ, St-Mere_Eglise is a wonderful little village....that was a must see for us, BOTH times!!