Paris –Normandy November trip itinerary w/o a car rental?
 

Planning a 7-10 day trip starting in Paris, touring the Normandy region (Saint-Malo, Mont St. Michel, Bayeux, D-day sites, Caen D-day museum) ending up in Rouen, and returning to Paris by train. There is a TGV train to Rennes from CDG with a transfer to Saint-Malo which makes a lot of sense (3:46 travel time). Train service from Rouen to Paris is also frequent. The problem is arranging car service or taxi transfers from Saint-Malo to MSM, MSM to Bayeux. Can anyone recommend a car or transport service for transport?

Rome2Rio advertises BlaBlaCar ride share service on their web site. It looks really flexible and cheap. Has anyone used it? Is it reliable?

I know car rental is the obvious solution but I don’t want to drive around Normandy in the rain with shorter daylight hours and have to worry about parking and leaving baggage in the car during tourist stops. I know the taxi fares will be high for these longer drives but car rental charges for an automatic picking up in Rennes and dropping in Caen or Rouen would also be high. If I could call on a reliable cost efficient taxi transport service to shuttle between these places it would be very helpful. Appreciate any advice, suggestions or recommendations.

Here is a rough itinerary:

Saturday 11/16 – land at CDG, TGV train to Rennes, change trains on to Saint-Malo (3:45)

Sunday 11/17 - Saint-Malo to Mont St. Michel transfer, tour MSM, store bags, transfer to Bayeux,

Monday 11/18 - D-day site tour w private guide, overnight in Bayeux

Tuesday 11/19- transport to Caen cemetery and museum, store bags, afternoon train to Rouen

Wednesday 11/20 - tour Rouen, early evening train to Paris (1:17)

Thursday 11/21 – Paris

Friday 11/22 – Paris

Saturday 11/23 – Fly home from CDG

Maybe it would be wise to rearrange your itinerary to beter suit travel without a car. You can easily do Rouen, Caen, DDay sites, etc., without a car. There are several excellent touring companies that do day tours to the DDay sites, for example, with excellent guides. So that's easy to do if you are staying in Bayeux for a day or so (maybe from Caen, also, I only know ones from Bayeux, which I used, I think I got a lot more out of it than if I were doing it myself).

You can go to/from Mont St Michel by public transport if you stay in Rennes, for example. I think the bus to/from the mont is really from Pontorson, which you can get to by train from Rennes easy enough. Just didn't think it would be that fascinating to stay in Pontorson.

Don't know your interest in St Malo. But you can easily get to/from St Malo by train in less than an hour from Rennes.

So that's what I would do, forget the whole car idea and just stay in Rennes. I also would not stay overnight at mont St Michel.

I think you're over-worrying about driving in Normandy. It's not a big deal. Bla-bla is great service,I suppose, but I don't want some unknown person taking me around. If you're freaked about driving, just stay in Rennes as Christina says.