Hello all! I am hoping to find someone who can really help me figure this out as I am growing quite overwhelmed. My daughter and I will be heading to London in May then will be leaving there with the hope of going to Mont St Michel, the Normandy Area and possibly Giverny. How do I make this happen?

y thought has been to take a eurostar train from London into Paris. It arrives at the Gare du Norde station at about 9:30 am. I have been considering renting a car there, then heading out, visiting Giverny and then going to MSM. We have an airbnb there. The following day we were planning to visit the normandy area, Honfleur or Etretat, then go back to MSM for a second night, and head to Paris that following morning for an additional weeks holiday. I realize now though that these things are too far apart to make sense and I am not sure what to do.

I have never driven in Europe and I am wondering if it makes financial sense with such high rates for gas and tolls, etc. Additionally, and quite honestly, embarrassingly, I am pretty phobic of large bridges and I don't know if I will need to cross a lot of them. I'm okay on small to medium ones, but things like the George Washington bridge are quite frightening for me. Ugh!

If renting a car doesnt make sense, can we get a train or bus to MSM then one that would take us into the Normandy area on our second day and then back to MSM? I have been looking for bus and train schedules but don't seem to see any for May/early June. Am I just looking in the wrong places? Should we skip the whole thing and stay in Paris? I am frustrated and overwhelmed. Any thoughts or help would be so very much appreciated!

My first piece of advice: Take a deep breath. You will have to make some difficult decisions, but you will see some wonderful things.

And welcome to Fodor’s!

A good site for transportation options: rome2rio.com – just be sure to follow through the links provided and (as you already know to do) check the schedule dates.

IME, viamichelin.com gives the best estimates of driving times (although I always add a bit for getting lost, stretching my legs, etc.); it also provides infrmation about costs for fuel and tolls, etc. I’m not sure if it provides information about bridges, but you can certainly check, and maybe some experts on the area will chime in…. (I suspect that you will want to avoid the Pont de Normandie if you go to Honfleur, but I don’t think that should would be a problem.)

I’m not sure why you are trying to back track to Honfleur. I would think you could rent a car at Gare du Norde, drive to and visit Giverny, and drive to Honfleur for a night. You could then drive on to Mont St-Michel for the next night, and then head back to Paris.

A good guidebook would seem a worthy investment. I’d recommend the Michelin Green for this trip, but any decent guidebook should do.

Good luck!

Thank you so much! I don't think we will go back to Honfleur. I didn't realize at first how far it was. That's a lot of car time instead of exploring time. I appreciate your thoughts as we try and plan a wonderful adventure.

Honfleur is delightful and on your way from Giverny to Mont St-Michel. Consider a night at La Cour Sainte Catherine
? Guest house Honfleur La cour sainte catherine

I would rent the car in Paris, drive to Giverny and see Monet's house and gardens. Either spend a night there or move on to Honfleur which is about 1 3/4 hrs drive. Spend a night or preferably two in Honfleur before moving south to MSM. Spend a couple of nights there before returning to Paris.

Going from Giverny to Honfleur, I don't think you would need to use, from my perspective, the dreaded Normandy bridge! I got stuck going over it from Belgium to Honfleur. Put my foot on the gas, got in the left lane, and didn't care how many tickets I might receive in the mail! (None). But made my GPS keep recalculating on my way out to avoid it on the trip to Rouen! We crossed the Seine on a very small free ferry where the river was quite narrow! Yay!!!

Oh, how funny! I specifically WANTED to cross that bridge, and had to keep re-programming my GPS to force the route!

I also hate large / long / tall bridges, so I share your feelings. But as I'm the customary driver on our trips (DH is the navigator), I somehow seem to be driving over them, like the Firth of Forth bridge in Scotland. Yes, in the left lane, driving slowly but fast enough to get off the thing. I recall on one bridge drive, I managed to perfectly position myself so I had a big truck in the lane between me and the water, so I couldn't see a thing.
A couple of additional pointers. Appoint your daughter as navigator, even if you have gps helping you out. I also like to take a paper map, which I find useful for a big-picture view of thing. Make sure you know how to work the parking brake, windshield wipers and headlights before you pull out of the rental car place. And unless you're comfortable with a manual transmission, rent an automatic.
Mont St. Michel is delightful at night - my mother and I traveled there (after visiting Normandy) many years ago, and DH and I returned to the area with our teen daughter several years ago. Enjoy!

Can I just say that loads of us planning trips get overwhelmed, even when we have done it many times. So you are not alone We are planning on a similar trip later this year and are going to do it all on public transport. So within France we'll use trains and buses. Most people recommend hiring a car but you can do it by public transport, it may take longer but if you really don't want to drive and have the hassle of parking, getting lost, figuring out tolls, etc then check the rome2rio website recommended above and see if you can do your trip another way. We have driven in Europe before and find travelling by train much less stressful. You can be more limited where you can go but there are other benefits.

Also I usually try and break down the trip planning. First is where to go, as in which country, and you've done that. Then dates, book flights. Then which towns, cities etc and for how long in each. Then accommodation and lastly transport within the country - either car or train. Try and think of each section separately and maybe it won't seem like this huge job that you will never figure out. Good luck!!

Kay

Kay has given you some GREAT advice! I'll just quibble with one thing -- I never book flights until I've gotten an itinerary reasonably ironed out! And I must admit that I read FAR too many posts from novice travelers who say, in essence, OK, we've booked our flights, now what do we do now that we realize we can't do what we wanted...? Or, you mean I could have booked flights that would have meant that I didn't have to backtrack? Or any number of other problems related to booking flights before nailing down an itinerary.

So my sequence is: country; then cities / towns, including how much time and why; then transportation (which can greatly affect timing or options); then rework itinerary; only then flights; and lastly accommodations.

I'm sure we each have our own strategies!

And I'm sure that even the most experienced among us continue to be overwhelmed at times (I know I am!) and continue to learn, trip by trip....

Okay, lots of good thoughts here. Perhaps I am trying to cram too much in to my timetable. Now that I am clear on how far apart everything is, I think some adjustments need to be made. We are in London the 23rd until the morning of the 29th. We could either take the eurostar to Paris and then get a train out from there, or fly direct to Rennes and go from there. If we take the train from Paris we would still stop in Rennes. What do any of you know about Rennes? Are there things we would like to explore there? I'll have to do some research. We could meander Rennes for a few hours then take a bus on to MSM and get settled in there for the night. We have two nights booked there. I know everyone says you don't need much time there. I don't know though. We could change that, but I have looked at it as such a magical place for such a long time, and I want hours to wander and walk around it at sunrise and sunset and sit in a cafe and relax and walk for miles. I must admit though, I'd really like to see another part of Normandy. Le Havre, Etretat, Omaha beach, and Giverny are all on my list but they are so far from MSM I don't think they make sense. Are there any other villages anyone would recommend that we could go to during our second day there and then return to MSM that night? Thoughts? Thanks so much!!

You are not really seeing the Cotentin peninsula with you trip and I don't think you have time but st Vaast or Barfleur are examples of the granite coast.

Le Havre... apart from one museum is not that exciting. Rennes is a bit too big for me I prefer Fougeres and Dinan, easy to get into and out with enough to do.

The roads can be very slow to get around

Why not take Eurostar to Lille-Europa and rent car there and head for Honfleur area and such and hit Giverny on way back to Paris. Getting out of Paris driving can be a hassle if not familiar with how to do it. Or, even take a ferry from Southampton or Portsmouth a few hours to Caen (Oustreham) - anyway if taking Eurostar book early at www.eurostar.com - deep discounts but limited in number. See www.seat61.com for sage advice on that - trains in general (maybe take one from Paris to Honfluer, etc and pick up car tool around and head back to Giverny)- BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.cp,/

I must admit that I wonder whether you are aware of just how tiny Mont St-Michel is? The only way to walk there "for miles" would be to walk the ramparts AND the road to the abbey over and over ... and over ... and over yet again.... Really, I'm not sure there are more than 2 miles that can be walked on the entire isle, and that would include every possible path! And BTW, the main road itself is just a mercifully short, steep, hard-to-walk cobbled lane between shops and hotels that aren't that interesting during the day and are closed at night. (Well, OK, in fairness, some of the old shop signs are mildly interesting -- the ones that hang on metal rods extending into the alleys. But you can't really see them during the day, and there aren't enough to keep one busy for much time even when you can see them.)

I thought it absolutely magical after day-trippers left, but I truly felt that I had seen and done everything possible on that tiny little islet in well under a day -- one evening and as long as it took me to visit the abbey the next day. I saw the tide come in, and the sunset, and the sunrise, I walked the ramparts, I relaxed over wine, I visited the abbey....

And as others have frequently noted, Mont St-Michel may be the one place in France where one is absolutely guaranteed to have a meal that is, at best, mediocre.

Of course, your experience could be different, but you might want to give some thought to all the things you will miss if you give this tiny place a second night.

Honestly, I thought you had outlined an excellent option -- eurostar to Paris, pick up rental car, visit Givenchy, drive to Honfleur for the night. On to Mont St-Michel the next day, and then back to Paris. Lots of places to stop along this route if you have the time, and having a car for this loop would give you the luxury to decide on the fly.

If you want to see more of Normandy -- and there's a lot worth seeing there! -- then I think you need to reconfigure your plans for London and / or Paris. JMO.

I can only comment on the big planning issue and large bridges. I started planning a trip to Sicily some time ago and almost gave it up because I was totally unfamiliar with Sicily, even through books or movies, and there was so much to see and do. Overwhelmed. However, you're getting there, and just keep plugging away at it. Lastly, the GW is my greatest enemy. Hate it. You are not alone.

Actually, no. Lol I have no idea how small it is. I am currently looking at yet another option. We could take a ferry from Portsmouth, UK, to Saint Malo. It is an overnight ferry and arrives in St Malo at 8:20 in the morning. We could explore there for a few hours, then head to MSM in the afternoon. We can stay there overnight and get up and explore, then then leave and head to Paris. I don't know, I guess it just isn't what I thought it would be there and I should listen to all the advice and maybe we should just do a night and be done with it.

My original thought is nice but I have had so many people tell me driving out of Paris is awful and since I don't know what bridges I will hit or how to manage that, I am feeling like it may not be a good plan and honestly, I am getting discouraged and frustrated

Again, take a deep breath -- you have lots of options. If you have a GPS (you can rent a car with one or bring your own), driving out of Paris shouldn't be that difficult -- but if you don't want to do that, fine, don't! Ferry to St. Malo or train to Rennes or train to Rouen or....

Sometimes too many options are the cause of lots of problems. I took ferries to and from St. Malo to both Jersey and Guernsey. What a wonderful way to get to St. Malo! And as another poster said on another forum where you've asked the same questions and gotten many answers, trek Est passing MSM. into Normandy Just because others put down MSM doesn't mean you have to pay any attention. If MSM is your dream do what you originally planned. I wonder if you are counting too much on others to help you with your planning and allowing yourself to become all confused because the answers vary. Maybe it's time for a back to the drawing board moment. Time for you to do some serious map study and guide study on your own and make your own plan now that these many forum posts have provided excellent ideas.

I'm sure Kja means Giverny.

Of course - thanks -- Giverny!

I second the idea that two nights on le MSM will probably end up making you wonder what the heck you're going to do with all that time, and you will realize that you'd have been better off using it to see something ese (and there is plenty to see in that neck of the woods). BUT, if it's always been your dream and you think you'll just want to hunker down there for a couple of days, then do that. I have to agree, though, that I can't think of a single café on that island I'd have any desire to relax in or any restaurant I'd want to dine in. There are, however, plenty of nearby towns where I'd be content to park at a café or resto and plenty of nearby places I'd be happy to walk for miles.

One thing that strikes me in all your posts, though, is that you don't seem to have a grasp of distances or the size of places, which I can only attribute to not having looked carefully at maps. I realize people have different approaches to planning their trips, but I can't even begin to get going without buying at least one good map (yes, the paper kind), laying it out on a big table, and plotting. If I don't do that I feel as though I'm just guessing at things that will become important when I'm actually on the ground. It's very important for me to know how far it is from A to B and what my options are for navigating between them. There is absolutely no reason, for example, not to know what bridges lie between Paris and your destination - it's all right there in front of you on a map, and you can see clearly how long or short they are and how you can get around them if you need to. You can also plot an uncomplicated route out of Paris (it really isn't that difficult to drive out of the city, but that's for you to decide). Once you have a bare bones itinerary plotted out and understand distances and timing, you can supplement your understanding with internet research. It may be useful to know that every village, town, and city in France has an official website, and they are often comprehensive and detailed. If you go to the MSM website, e.g., you can easily see how big (small) a place it is. You can do that with every other destination you're thinking of visiting. And you can use sites like www.viamichelin.com to give you details on mileage and tolls and scenic routes and timing.

In sum, there is no reason to be in the dark or confused about any of these details. There is a world of information out there. Help yourself to it and you won't be so overwhelmed.

You're right. I'm letting this overwhelm me and looking for answers from others when I can figure this out myself mostly. I'm not sure where I will get a paper map of the area but I can probably buy anything online. I have time to figure this out. I need to make this what I want it to be and just make a detailed plan. Thanks for your thoughts. I appreciate it.