Advice on Normandy/Brittany road trip in first half of June

I feel dubious about the scenario of driving right after a long flight. You could take the train to Giverny, then another to Rouen, and rent your car upon leaving Rouen, having had time to rest and acclimate to the time zone.

[Edit: actually, it would be better to go straight to Rouen, stay 3 nights, and do a day trip to Giverny by train, since there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to leave luggage at Vernon/Giverny.]

I also doubt you are safe driving upon arrival.
Your title mentions Brittany yet you are only visiting one small place, Dinan. You have a good grasp of Normandy which includes Mt-St-Michel. Try to see more of beautiful Brittany. Take a look at the Pink Granite Coast.
Drive back to Paris via Chartres.

This is less that 2 months, with June being the start of high season. You need to firm up this, and look for hotels sooner rather than later. Your itinerary is decent as it is, so simply solidify it and look for hotels.

As to hostels, we (70,73) will stay in them. Many have private rooms. So they are not just bunk rooms. Not 3-star, but not so bad really.

I agree with others. Don't rent at CDG. Rent in Rouen. Take the train to that location. Start there, end there, train back to Paris. Last night in Paris? Absolutely. Go to Le Pied au Cochon at 3 AM.

I disagree with the others. If you're landing at 1 PM your body clock's time, I would think you should be fine for driving unless you've been awake for a very, very long time and are too fatigued to drive -- you should be the judge for that.

As far as your itinerary goes, Dieppe is OK but I would prefer driving up to the very pretty Veules-les-Roses west of Dieppe and then heading west along the coast toward Fécamp and then Etretat.

Lots of construction going on in central Caen. You could go to the Mémorial de Caen but there are other sights as well, such as le Château de Caen and the Parc Michel d'Orano around the Abbey aux Dames. Very pleasant to walk around. They have a large cedar tree planted in 1849 there.

Some places "between" (kinda) Bayeux and Mt. St. Michel you might consider are:

• the Abbaye de Cerisy La Forêt and the nearby Château de Belleroy, which has an interesting connection to hot air balloons (montgolfières in French, named after les frères Montgolfier) because of its former owner's Malcolm Forbes' hobby

• La Cambe, site of a WWII German cemetery

• Marigny le Lozon, because of the smaller WWII German cemetery located there

• Coutances, which has a large cathedral, pretty garden, and several dining options

• the Abbaye de Hambaye, a ruined (French revolution) abbey located in a serene natural setting

• Villedieu-les-Poêles, an old medieval town with a focus on the arts and home to a working bell foundry you can tour where large bells are made to ship to churches and other installations around the world (and in France, such as Notre Dame de Paris)

• Agon-Coutanville on the coast west of Coutances, with restaurants and beaches

• the city of Granville south of there, which has a very lively central town, lots of good restaurants, ferries to the Channel Islands, and pretty views of the harbor and central city from the old town area around Eglise Notre-Dame

• Saint-James, home of the somewhat misnamed Brittany-American Cemetery (since it's located in Normandie) -- smaller than the more famous cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer but still very much worth a visit, located a half hour from Mt. St. Michel

If it's not clear, this isn't a suggested itinerary: just some random sites between Bayeux and Mt. St. Michel you might want to consider visiting depending on your interests and available time.

You can take the train to Rouen the first day, relax there and do the daytrips the coming days. Or you can drive from CDG north to Senlis and Chantilly and deal with jetlag there. The next day you can drive to Auvers-sur-Oise for Vincent van Gogh and continue further for instance to Giverny. You can do this driving from Auvers (N184) to Cergy-Pontoise and turn off to Rouen following the A15 / D14. Turn off to Vernon at Magny-en-Vexin and follow the D86 to Ambleville and further D37 and D5 to Giverny.

Between Magny-en-Vexin and Ambleville for instance Hodent, Genainville and certainly La Roche-Guyon near Giverny are worth the detour. This is a much more scenic and relaxing route instead of driving through the outskirts of Paris.

Heck, we may run into each other! lol

I'll be in Rouen June 4th and 5th
Bayeux June 6th and 7th
Mont Saint Michel June 8th
Tours June 9th and 10th
Paris 11th-15th

Thanks, all! We decided to go ahead and train to Rouen and get the car from there. Interestingly, getting a car with automatic transmission at CDG for two weeks was cheaper, even including gas and tolls, than train to Rouen + similar car rental there. But we really prefer being car free so the train wins.

And thanks for all the extra advice, too, we will look into the other places that were mentioned and see what we can fit into our pace.

If you are talking about visiting Normandy this year (2023), you are probably already too late for any decent tours or lodgings near the D-day beaches for early June. June 6th is the anniversary of D-day, and places and tours typically fill up a year ahead of time. If you are planning on 2024, I would still book right away. That will be the 80th anniversary of D-day. I've visited for seven D-day anniversaries so far, so I already have my lodging locked in for 2024 (secured last winter), but it wasn't easy.

Yes it is for this year, and that explains why hotels are so hard to find. I really need to remember my history lessons better! However, there are still a ton of holiday rentals available through Airbnb and VRBO for anyone else booking last minute.

schack: We made a trip along your lines in 2017. It will be great, but I feel you are shortchanging Brittany. Here is what we did, so take what works for you from it. We had a car already, so drove to Giverny for the morning (we were already east of Paris), ate lunch at the small cafe there, and drove on to Rouen where we were only able to spend one night (family commitments). However, it was only about 1 1/2 hours drive from Giverny, so we got there early enough to check into our hotel and stroll around the old town for 3-4 hours before dinner. If you can spend all the next day there, great. But a half day was okay for us due to other plans. We visited a market, saw the cathedral (like Monet) in many lights, and enjoyed the ambiance. No museum visits however. The next day we headed for Bayeux by way of the Route des Abbayes, to my mind the BEST way to head there from Rouen. It is a beautiful drive along the Seine, through towns like Villequier, which has the Victor Hugo Museum. There are several abandoned abbeys on this route. A stop at the Abbaye de Jummieges is so worth it. We spent a solid hour exploring the ruins and relishing the peacefulness and calm there. The actual drive, without stops, is about 2 hours to Bayeux or Honfleur. we made it to Bayeux, even with stopping for the abbey and a meal, in time to see the tapestry (open until 7 p.m.). I would be sure to spend two nights in Bayeux to have a full day visiting D-Day sites. Be sure to get to the American Cemetery in time for the flag-lowering ceremony. It is meaningful and beautiful and not to be missed. We didn't take a tour as we had a car and didn't want to go by their schedules. We visited several places. You should figure out which most appeal to you. Allow time for the cathedral in Bayeux. I hear it is worth visiting. Alas, we weren't able to this time.

When we left Normandy on our way to MSM, we stayed in a B and B in Villedieu-les-Poeles. It is close to MSM, and not touristy. The town was famous for copperwork/metalwork and for lace-making. It is small, but sometimes you can see demonstrations of the crafts the town was known for. Our visit to MSM was on a rainy day, and in early May, so the crowds weren't terrible. We ascended the back way (to the left as you approach the mont) and thus avoided the crowd going up. We spent about three hours total exploring the church and abbey, then went down the main street (lots of people!), but found a cafe with a table and view to have a drink. (Meals there are overpriced). We left and drove on about mid-afternoon to Brittany.

Don't shortchange yourself with only a one night stop in Dinan. Brittany is a unique part of France, with its own language and history, closer to Scotland, Ireland and Wales in character, than to Burgundy or the Ile de France. Quimper, the capital there, is a really neat town with its own lovely church and shops selling the typical faieance of Brittany. Brittany has great crepes (savory and sweet), cider, camembert cheese, and Calvados (too strong for me, but hubby likes it). It's known for great seafood, especially oysters. You must spend at least three days in Brittany to explore its own particular character. And in the south there are dolmens to see, two large fields of them, Suggestion: sleep one night in Dinan, drive to the west for a "land's end" experience of seeing the Atlantic as the force that it is, then on toward Quimper for the second night. (These are not great distances...easy to stop and look at whatever catches your eye, or even stay in St. Malo.) We drove from Quimper to Pluneret to sleep, but there are lots of options along the coast. On our way to Pluneret is where we stopped to see the dolmens.

Our trip from there was to Saumer, a jumping-off point for the Loire Valley, but you will be off to Paris. Have a great time, but don't miss out on Brittany! It deserves time to savor it. Dinan isn't enough!

Just reread your post. If I had to drop a place, it would be Caen. I understand the museum there is a full-day exercise. If I had to choose, I would go to St. Mere Eglise.
Bon voyage!

We are thinking of doing a similar trip. The rental car is always something to deal with. You are picking up your car in Rouen. Where will you return it? Thank you.

@Linda, I haven't rented it yet. Ideally I would rent in Rouen and return in Caen to save a little extra driving, and then we would take the train back to Paris from there. However, if that ends up being quite a bit more expensive then I will return in Rouen. The total travel time (train from Caen to Paris vs. drive to Rouen and train from there) is roughly the same.

This makes sense for our itinerary because we decided to visit the WW2 sites at the end, avoiding being there on the D-Day anniversary. That would have been interesting, but more crowded and expensive. Thanks to the advice above, our heavily revamped and longer itinerary (oh, it's nice being retired!) looks like this:

• Rouen, Giverny, Etretat - 5 days staying in Rouen

• Dinan, Mont St-Michel, northern Brittany coast - 5 days staying in Dinan

• Vannes, Carnac - 5 days staying in Vannes

• Bayeux, WW2 sites - 5 days staying in Bayeux