My wife and I will be arriving Paris July 10 and driving to Honfleur for two days and then to Bayeux for 2 days. We have been to Normandy on three previous trips. From there we plan to drive to Brittany and need some advice on where to go and where to stay. I have researched prior postings on Fodors on this area of France and some of them are somewhat dated so I was hoping to get more current advice. It has been recommended to us that we consider Concarneau, Vannes, Quiberon and Belle Ile. We will be traveling with our 6 pound maltese, she has been on prior trips to France and Italy so we need a pet friendly hotel, B&B, gite, etc. Any suggestions on where to base or where to stay would be appreciated. The last 4 days of our trip will be in Paris so we would either drive to Le Mans or some other city to drop the car and train into Paris. I have driven most of France and would consider driving to CDG to drop the car if that is better than returning it somewhere else. Thanks in advance,

For sights, a trip report usually is not dated in that the picturesque/historical sites have not changed that much. Listings in http://www.gites-de-france.com/locat...bre-hotes.html indicate whether or not they accept pets. I have two trip reports on Brittany; click on my name to find them.

St Malo, Dinan, Fougeres and Quiberon would be on my spot list

We've spent 2 weeks vacationing near Dinan, and 2 weeks near Perros Guirec (pink rocks) on the north coast of Brittany. And 1 week near Pt Aven on the south coast. We prefer the north coast because the interior countryside is prettier and there seems to be more interesting "stuff" to do there.

Rennes is one of our "top 5" large cities in France, and Vannes is in our "top 5" medium-sized city list.

If I had to recommend just 1 spot in Brittany for you to stay - it would be near Dinan. Rennes has excellent connections to Paris - so drop the car off there after spending the afternoon & night in Rennes. I would not recommend Concarneau, Vannes, Quiberon, or Belle Ile as a "base" - although then are all good "visits" (we've never visited Belle Isle, however). Vannes has an excellent Sat morning market.

Do you have my Normandy & Brittany itinerary?? I've sent my various itineraries to over 5,000 people on Fodors & aol (really). If you would like a copy, e-mail me at [email protected] & I'll attach a copy to the reply e-mail. The itinerary includes our favorite cities, sites, scenic drives, restaurants, and links to some of the Gites where we've stayed.

Stu Dudley

If you want to look at my trip report about exploring near Dinan, Saint-Malo and Mont Saint Michel (eastern Brittany) then feel free. The report has lots of photos and descriptions of the places I visited. At the very end of the report are links to every major tourist office website in Brittany. The tourist office websites are one of your best resources for vacation planning as they'll tell you about all the things you can see and do in an area as well as info about accommodation and restaurants and other sites/attractions/activities:

http://tinyurl.com/86s4v8f

Here is a similar report about exploring The Gulf of Morbihan in western Brittany (Vannes, Quiberon, Carnac, Rochefort en Terre, Josselin etc.): http://tinyurl.com/8xuuryc


Other popular areas in Brittany are Finistère (just north of Morbihan) and the Côte de Granit Rose (The Pink Granite Coast).

We stayed in Questembert and drove out each day to the various places we wanted to visit. It id=s a lovely small village and the hotel and resturant was 1st class!
leBretagne et La residence

Stu, I sent you an email and look forward to seeing your trip reports.

FrenchMystiqueTours, what an informative report. The gite you stayed in looked very nice so I emailed to see what they might have available. You and Stu may have swayed me to stay more in the Dinan area.

Thanks also to the other replies, they were helpful. After I receive Stu's reports, I will come back with more questions.

Glad you found the report informative. I wrote it in a manner to help visitors to the area so nice to hear it is useful for its intended purpose. There are many other places close to where I stayed that you can visit that are not covered in my report. Make sure you have good maps (I like Michelin maps of the scale 1:150,000 or 1:200,000) as these are invaluable for exploring and being oriented with the area.

I loved the gite we stayed in and it is part of a small complex of 4 or 5 similar attached units. Owners were wonderful and I would not hesitate to recommend it. Come back if you have further questions.

On recommendations from Stu & FMT we stayed in Dinan last August, and couldn't have been more delighted with the choice!

It's a beautiful place, and very convenient for also visiting Dinard, St Malo & Mont Saint Michel.

Our only down side was our choice of accommodation - so I won't pass that detail on to you.
Di

>>Our only down side was our choice of accommodation - so I won't pass that detail on to you.<<

Why not? I think it is valuable to know where not to stay - and why.

Stu Dudley

With the invaluable advice of many Fodorites (including, but not limited to, StuDudley and FrenchMystiqueTours) I ended up staying in Ploumanac'h on the Cote de Rose Granite (loved it!), Rennes (what a great little city!), and Vannes (charming, and a good place for seeing Carnac+).

I loved Brittany! Be sure to stop at a few different places on the northern coast (so different from each other!), visit a few parish closes, see some of the neolithic sites....

FrenchMuystiqueTours, just finished perusing your trip reports. You take great pictures. This has been so very valuable as we are planning a 5 day trip in early May. First night in Nantes, 2 in Lézardrieux and 2 in Dinan before heading to Rennes and train to Paris. Any recommendations for must-sees in the area of Lézardrieux? Will have car and intrepid driver. Have already experienced MSM and Fougeres.

In response to Stu - we stayed in Hotel de France, and if we had taken the time to look at the reviews on the Logis Hotel website, alarm bells would have sounded loudly enough for us to avoid this choice.

The hotel was undergoing renovations and builders continually left unnecessary and dangerous mess and equipment on the narrow stairs, the staff weren't particularly helpful, and the cleaning left a lot to be desired.

This has been our only negative experience from all the delightful Logis Hotels that we've stayed in, & I felt they really didn't deserve to be members of this chain; they were letting the side down badly (I did make these comments to Logis as well).

Di

FrenchMystiqueTours, we are about to make the deposit for Les Crabieres in Brittany. The owner has asked us to wire the deposit to him (20%). I have used paypal and other payment methods in the past but have never wired cash before. I am a retired banker so I understand the wiring process. I am curious how you handled the deposit and how everything worked re payment for the rental. I appreciate your help,

Hey folks. Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier. I was away on vacation so didn't know there were responses.

rlbplf - I believe we paid the owner by check. We mailed a deposit check to them before we arrived and wrote another check to pay the balance once we arrived. This only works for French people who have a French bank account. The owner was very, very nice and I would definitely trust them. Her mother passed away the day we arrived and she still couldn't have been any nicer. My wife reminded me that there may not be wifi there so you might have to buy a USB modem and buy internet service. Check with the owner if that's important. Hope that helps.

So you wrote a check drawn on your account in France? It sounds like the owners are very nice folks and I appreciate the response.

Yup, that's right on both accounts (bank pun not intended).