Travel to Normandy
 

We will be arriving in Paris at the Charles de Gaulle airport. What is the best way to get to Normandy? Train or rent a car. I understand there aren't any trains directly from the airport. Is this true? If so where would we catch a train to Normandy.

hi, my husband planned our trip <BR>to normandy and it went quite well... <BR>we took a train to rouen and rented <BR>a car there and drove to normandy beach...good luck!!! <BR>

Whether you rent a car at the airport (you'll pay extra in airport taxes) or at some other location is up to you. Driving out of Paris to Normandy is not traumatic. If you do take a train, it will likely originate from the Gare st-Lazare, which has trains to Bayeux, Caen, and other cities that would presumably be near where you want to go.

We always pick up a car a the airpor.t the coastline is too beautiful to resist and you can move on when ever you like.Honfleur is a delightful spot to luch or dinner along the water. It also has the largest wooden church in all of France still beautiful as it was when built in the 15th century.There's a wonderful art gallery that carries works by some of my favorite modern artists. Trouville has one of our favorite brasseries for moules LES VAPUERS. If you look at the eaves and roofs in the calvados area,you will see the epis de faitage, decorative roof finials originnaly to protect the roof pinion from the weather, than they became more ornate to show the owners wealth. We found a house that had at least 20. In Deaville you can see them topping the famed Hotel Normandy.They take many forms, cats, stocks, for a close up, they are still made at Mesil de Bavent. these are remarkable stlagmites of ceramic and then there are the landing beaches-where you will be so moved when you see all those crosses and so many unknown dead. Onething we will never, ever forget

Mimi: Have you been to Rouen? We are trying to decide with a tour to Deauville/Honfleur or Rouen. We have only 1 day (cruise)

Linda, if you have only one day, go to Rouen. It packs a far greater wallop in terms of historical sites, museums, and restaurants (really good ones) than Deauville/Trouville or Honfleur, as lovely as those three places are.

<BR>evening, Linda, We did like Rouen very much, the cafes that line the main street before the big clock tower, all had attractive menus. We picked Adrian's and had a woderful time everybody was very friendly, but it is totally different than Honfleur. We stop in Trouville because one our favorite bistros is there-LES VAPUERS!

From Charles de Gaulle we took an airport shuttle to the St. Lazare train station (the station that takes you to Normandy destinations). From there, we took the train to Caen and rented a car. It was very easy!!! Good luck

JA: Which shuttle runs from CDG to Gare St. Lazare? We're doing a similar trip in October and would like to take a train to Rouen right after arriving at the airport, then rent a car to see the rest of Normandy.

We rented a car at CDG and drove to Bayeux in June. This was our first time to drive in France and even though I had all the right maps and directions, we got lost getting out of Paris twice. This was all part of the adventure thought and eventually we found the right highway and made it to Bayeux. I would recommend Bayeux as a town base yourself in. Don't miss the Bayeux tapestry and catherdral. There is an excellent D-Day museum in town.