anuta77

I have begun to plan our annual vacation sans the kids which will be this year to Brittany, France.
We will be staying in Beltz for a week in mid-June. Aside from visiting Vannes and Rennes, and taking a drive to St. Malo and Mt. St. Michele, we don't have anything else on our agenda. I am looking for recommendations for places to visit and for the local restaurants, including places where we can eat oysters/fresh seafood...
We'll be going to Mt. St. Michele one day and having a dinner nearby at Le Coquillage for which we've already made a reservation. Toying with the idea of just staying there for a night, instead of driving back to Beltz at night... yay or nay on that one?
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!

Robert2533

You might want to consider spilling over into Normandy, especially when it comes to eating great oysters. Some of the best we've ever had were served fresh, sea to table, in Barfleur, 9 for a single serving at Le Chasse Marée.

Michael

This trip report:http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ummer-2009.cfm contains our second trip to Brittany. I also wrote one that starts in Ghent; click on my name to find it.

annhig

aha - Belz! I don't know it but we stayed in Vannes for a long weekend last summer and found loads to do in the area. Vannes could certainly take a day to see, especially if you get one of the free buses down the river and take a boat trip out around the bay.

one thing that you haven't mentioned is the standing stones of southern Brittany, especially around Carnac - they are very numerous and may interest your children. I'm sure that there are more in a good guide book - the Michelin green guide to Brittany is very good.

a warning about Rennes - it's quite a long way from Belz [google maps says 1 hr 38 mins, and then you have to get parked] and with all the other things there are to do closer to Belz, you might not want to spend a day like that with nearly 4 hours in the car!

it's even further to Mont St. Michel - 2 1/2 hours - and I think that you would definitely enjoy it more if you did it as an overnight, perhaps taking in Rennes on the way back if there was time.

annhig

oops - I see that you are sans enfants - bravo!

FrenchMystiqueTours

You can have a look at this thread which will highlight the main sites and attractions in the various départements in coastal Brittany and give you other useful tips:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic....html#37748007

Since you'll be near Vannes and want to visit Saint-Malo then you might also want to check out my two photo reports about exploring those areas. They're full of photos and descriptions of the places I visited.

This report covers the area around the Gulf of Morbihan:

http://tinyurl.com/2555vaf

This report covers the area near Dinan and Saint-Malo. At the end of the report are links to all the major tourist office websites in Brittany:

http://tinyurl.com/86s4v8f

If you only have one week and are trying to cover both these regions then I would suggest you have two bases, one in/near Vannes and the other near Saint-Malo/Dinan. You'll spend too much time driving trying to go from Vannes to Saint-Malo and Mont-Saint-Michel (and places nearby) and back to your base around Vannes. It's a 2 hour 40 minute non-stop drive from Belz (note the spelling) to Saint-Malo and almost another hour from Saint-Malo to Mont-Saint-Michel. It's almost a 2 hour drive from Belz to Rennes so I would skip that too. There is way more than enough of interest to keep you busy for one week near Belz so if you are committed to staying a full week in Belz I would skip Saint-Malo, Rennes and MSM. You'll see from the thread I provided the link to all the places you could visit that are near Belz.

anuta77

Many thanks to everyone who replied! Your suggestions made me think that we will probably stay overnight in Malo one day to allow us to visit MSM, have dinner at Le Coquillage and return the next day via Rennes. Perhaps, we'll leave Normandy for another trip when our sons are older and we return with them and visit the WWII sites.
I hope we can still find great seafood and oysters in Brittany w/o venturing to Normandy... I would really appreciate any restaurant recommendations for that as well as for the just great local food.
Thanks so much again to everyone who helped!

Michael

http://www.brittanytourism.com/ideas...ihan-with-ivan

kja

I found the Michelin Green Guide especially useful for this area.

FrenchMystiqueTours

Brittany is all about seafood and oysters and anything that comes from the ocean. I know you are looking for a specific restaurant recommendation buy oysters and great seafood are ubiquitous throughout Brittany. Both can be found everywhere in abundance. You will see once you get there. Trust me, you don't need to over research this.

kja

Restaurants:
In Rennes, Le Cours des Lices
In Ploumanac'h, the restaurant of the Hotel des Rochers

Both dinners were deliciously memorable!

StuDudley

Do you have my Brittany & Normandy itinerary?? My wife & I have spent 6 weeks exploring Brittany. Plus my wife spent a summer studying in St Brieuc while in High School. If you would like a copy, e-mail me at [email protected] & I'll attach one to the reply e-mail.

Stu Dudley

kja

PS -- Stu Dudley's itinerary is AWESOME!

crossen

We were in Brittany and Normandy this past October and we stayed in Dinan for three nights and traveled to the coast from Dinan, which is a beautiful little town in its own right. We traveled to Dinard (there are many places to walk along the shoreline in Dinard), which we liked very much, but felt that Saint Malo was a bit touristy. We had a great lunch in Cancale at Chez Victors but there are so many seafood restaurants in that area that I'm sure there a several other good places to eat at also. It was quite interesting to see the oyster farming that goes on in that area. I have never seen anything quite like it. In the distance you can see Mont Saint Michel, almost like a mirage, rising up in the bay.