Thank you Mimar. We are traveling to the Dordogne in June, preceded by a week in the north of France. I have not yet planned the leg from Normandy to the Dordogne, so your mention of Angles and St Savin are helpful. Your pictures are all beautiful. I've never been to Brittany, and I have to say that the ones of that region make me think we may want to fit it in to our trip somehow. Although you did not seem thrilled with that area. We have so much to see and so little time.

Mimar,
what didn't you like about your apartment rental in Paris? Am planning a trip for July/August, & appreciate any suggestions/ advice, etc.

Our apartment was in the Marais, very close to the Centre Pompideau. This is a very busy area, lots of stores and restaurants in addition to the museum. We decided we prefer quieter, more residential areas of Paris. But others would love being in the middle of the action.

And the apartment itself was disappointing. It was Vacation in Paris's #72 on rue Simon le Franc. Odds and ends didn't work: the coffee maker, the dryer part of the washer-dryer, the clothes-drying rack, the Internet (though that may have been the fault of our antique PDA). There was no hot water in the later evening. Oh, and the rule that you must wash up all the dishes before leaving. If the previous tenants had not done a good job washing up, the landlord refused all responsibility. So we had to inspect the dishes and wash them before using them, our precursors having skimped this job.

We're used to renting apartments and don't necessarily expect everything to be perfect. But it all added up to too much here. And I haven't even mentioned the hole in the floor. And having to mail the keys back to the US from France.