1 night near CDG and then Normandy Itinerary

I don’t think there’s many hotels way out there in the countryside by the airport. The good news is that there’s a train station right in the airport you can take the REB B right into the heart of Paris in about 45 minutes which is what I would do.

Do you want to stay in Paris? You could just take the train and probably change stations. Then there’s a high-speed train that takes about two hours. It gets all the way over to Rennes which is a nice little town just an hour from Mont Saint Michelle.

If you going D/Day places it’s all driving. There is Pont du hoc where special forces climbed a sheer cliff under fire. There is the American cemetery. There are various bombed out gun emplacements you can walk in. And there is little museum at the port town where they built artificial harbor. You can do it all in a day with a car.

We actually had French friends pick us up in Paris st 7 am, drive over, drive back by 8 pm. So we never stayed in that area - it was pretty sparse for hotels.

We stayed at a Hilton at the airport and it included breakfast which was enormous and we had a very good dinner there. We were.dropped.off by taxi from.Paris..I don't remember if we got.a.bus or.cab to.airport but I remember they did not have a shuttle bus. We were doing opposite of what you are doing but just wanted to tell you there are hotels by the airport as we used different hotels.on two other trips I just don't remember their names but they did have shuttles.

Wanting nothing to do with renting a car at CDG, or staying a night near the airport, we are flying into Paris, and staying the night in Paris (6th arrondissement) taking the train from Montparnasse train station to Rennes. Picking up a car rental in Rennes and heading to Mont St Michel. One night near there, then on to Bayeux (and surrounding areas) for a few nights, then on to Rouen (and surrounding areas) for a few nights, then up to Lille, dropping off the rental car then onward to Belgium and the Netherlands.

Why not take the train to Rouen, pick up a car rental there, and do sort of a reverse circle of what we are doing? Making Vimy the only sort of out of the circle detour. It seems to me you have way too much time spent at CDG renting cars/returning cars back and forth into the city from CDG. Drop off the car in Rennes and take the train into Paris. Easy metro ride from Montparnasse train station to your hotel near Gare de Lyon train station.

Or even more efficient, take the train from Paris to Lille, (Lille is just north of Vimy) rent a car, then Vimy, then Rouen...etc.

I think the OP's plan is just fine. Seems like a practical approach to seeing some of the most beautiful and meaningful places in northwest France.

Thanks for the info everyone! Taking train to Rennes or to Lille as starting point would be more efficient and less time in and around CDG.

cdntraveller, glad the info helped! I should also mention that if your pick up or drop off car rental day is a Sunday, rental hours are more limited so double check the hours at all the locations. I also have found the SNCF train app user friendly for my train tickets. Also, though we have a car we are taking an Overlord day tour of the WW2 sites out of Bayeaux, which comes highly recommended on this forum. Will try to report back early May if I pick up any extra hints/tips along the way on our trip.

Your plan looks good. Count it in nights rather than days
Plenty of hotels at CDG and near CDG.
Car rental on a Sunday is not a problem but it would be outside the major airport. You aren't renting until Monday anyway.

Lille:
Spending the first night in Lille, a quick train ride from the airport train station, is better for your itinerary starting in Vimy if rental selection and hours work for you. Pickup in Lille, return at CDG or do a more circular route dropping in Rennes as suggested above and taking the TGV back to the Montparnasse train station. Montparnasse to the Gare de Lyon area is easy by bus 91 or taxi. Either one is a good area to stay before your ride to Barcelona.

Note: the TGV from the airport to Rennes is a long dragged out ordeal. Go to Lille. Returning Rennes to Paris is easy-peasy.

If Vimy will be your first stop (I encourage you to visit there- it is one of the most memorable war memorials we have ever experienced) then going to Lille, or even Arras on your arrival day by train would put you closer to Vimy. Go online to see which offers the better rental car options. Plan on dropping the car at a different location.

You will be hard pressed to visit all of the D Day sites with only one day allotted. Hopefully, in addition to the Juno Centre, you will see some of the Gold, Juno, and Sword sites, as well as the Canadian War Cemetary af Beny sur Mer. We stayed 3 nights in Courseulles sur Mer in order to really explore the whole area, and included the American sectors as well as the historic sites in Bayeux, like the tapestry. (DH is a military history buff)

When leaving Honfleur, consider dropping the car in Rouen, then taking the train into Paris instead of going all the way to CDG which is on the other side of the city.

The others have given you some ways to make the trip more efficient. I just want to point out that Honfleur is quite close to Rouen, so I would want to see it before driving all the way west to Mont-St.-Michel, unless there's a reason why it makes more sense to drop the car in Rouen before returning to Paris by train. Adjusting your route might free up a bit of time for sightseeing in Bayeux. The town has quite a lot to see: Bayeux Tapestry, Cathedral, very good invasion museum, British War Cemetery, and the very pretty historic center. I enjoyed the walking tour organized by the tourist office as well. Rouen itself is drop-dead gorgeous, incidentally.

I don't know how much background you and your husband have in WWII history. It's clear you have a serious interest, so you may already be very knowledgeable. I am not, and I really valued the Overlord Tour I took a few years ago. I found the invasion sites were a lot more meaningful to me than they would have been without the background information provided by the driver/guide. Overlord offers several different tours departing from Bayeux, one of them with a focus on Canadian sites.

Thanks everyone! We are thankful for the many suggestions and recommendations. Our updated itinerary will involve taking train to Lille upon arrival at CDG and then over the course of the next 5 nights working our way in rental car to the west to visit Rouen, Honfleur, Bayeux, and Mont Saint Michel. We also like the recommendation for an Overlord tour with a focus on the Canadian sites - we feel that we can learn more and see more sites on a tour than on our own. Staying our first night in Lille (closer to Vimy) will also save us a night so that we can stay 1 night near Mont Saint Michel. We will pick up rental car in Lille and drop off in Rennes before taking train back to Paris. We then depart Paris by high speed train to Barcelona for 5 nights.

Do we need to book train from CDG to Lille in advance or do we just buy ticket upon arrival? Our flight is scheduled to arrive at 10am however may need to account for delays. We will each have carryon luggage and personal item so we won't need to wait for baggage pick up.

Thanks again!

cdntraveller, so glad this all worked out. We downloaded the SNCF app, which is very user friendly (not something I often say) to purchase our train tickets. It lets you change or cancel on the app. I assume the tickets may be cheaper further in advance and get more expensive closer to date. (But I don't know that for sure.) Anyway, I already bought ours in advance, knowing I can change if necessary. It may still be too soon to buy tickets for September, but keep checking back.

Since we are now taking nearly the exact same trip, but you counter clockwise and us clockwise, I was going to mention that for our one night near Mt St Michel, we are staying in Pontsorson at the Best Western Hotel Montgomery. It looks perfectly sufficient for one night, and has a place to park the car. Pontorson seems a quick drive to the parking area for Mt St Michel shuttle. But if you find something different that's really amazing, let me know.

Did a similar itinerary last year, although in reverse (Normandy first then the Vimy area). We took the train Paris to Rouen and then picked up a car. We drove from Bayeux to Arras one afternoon which took about 4.5 hours including a short stop for lunch in Abbeville. We stayed in Arras, very close to the central square which was a great location and well positioned for an easy drive to Vimy. We did visit Lille, which is a much bigger city, and a lot busier. I would highly recommend a memorial that we stumbled onto close to Vimy: the Ring of Remembrance (L’anneau de la mémoire in Ablain-Saint-Nazaire). It’s a stunning memorial with over 500,000 names of soldiers of all nationalities who died during WW1, all engraved on brass panels in a large circle. Definitely worth a stop on your way to or from Vimy, as is Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial.

I've spent considerable time in and around CdG and advise you this: Get outta there!
You can make easy train connections from the airport to Arras which as you know is the base for Vimy. Probably snooze on the train, better than at a car wheel or marooned at the airport.

Arras is picturesque, with two big squares, and its own history in the wars. In your jet-fatigued haze you can stroll, dine, and catch up with your sleep.

A taxi is the easiest way to Vimy where you will want to spend most of a day. The Vimy battle was harrowing; the designation of the memorial was nation-defining. Nothing on the spires is about battle, all is about regret.

The relatively new visitors centre is vital, especially for explaining the attacks through tunnels. And the student guides are well-trained.

Then back to Arras for the rest of your journey.