My husband & I are planning on flying to Paris the last week of August & returning home the second week of September. We want to rent a home & live like the locals do. Preferably by the sea, where a person could ride a bike into town for coffee or groceries. Would like to enjoy small cafe's with live music & just relax. Any suggestions?

Go to the coast. Honfleur/Normandy/brittany

Here is where we stayed for 2 weeks in Brittany.

http://en.gites-de-france.com/holida...22G130918.html

Directly on the water. It helps if you can read French.

Stu Dudley

Normandy/Brittany around Mont St Michel is beautiful. Lots of small towns nearby with sights if you want to venture out

Stu - your place looks amazing but booked when needed.

However, there will be lots of others on Gites de France site - has English version. We have rented 5 cottages through them - all were beautiful but not by sea

>> there will be lots of others on Gites de France site<<

Yep - 55,000 of them. We've stayed in 37 different gites rented through Gites-de-France.

Stu Dudley

The Arcachon area or La Rochelle and the Ile de Ré are other possibilities.

A few thousand possibilities come to mind. Have you looked at a map and narrowed this down even slightly?

I second the Normandy/Brittany regions. We stayed in a B&B outside of Honfleur and loved that town and the surrounding areas.

A few thousand possibilities come to mind. Have you looked at a map and narrowed this down even slightly?>

Well she/he is asking here just because there are so so many folks knowledgeable about France - asking for their favorite - what would looking at a map of France tell them - she is using real French experts like Stu Dudley to advise and he has given nice suggestions, as usual - folks here who have stayed in such a place that the OP wants - OP says they do not really care where but gave a wish list - and folks like Stu gave here great options - someone who has been there - no just looking at a map of France for the OP would be a waste of time as everything would seem the same.

I would recommend a place that I have stayed many times - St Giles-croix-de-vie - a bustling seaside resort town in the Vendee with great beaches and lots of small cafes, etc - everything the OP is looking for - and though lots of tourists not many Americans so a real French feeling - check out the images of St-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie!

https://www.google.com/search?q=st+g...=1600&bih=1075