We will be spending 5 nights in Brittany, flying into Brest. Thinking of driving from there to St Malo and spending 2 nights in the old city, then 2 nights in Dinan, biking the Rance River, and last night in Rennes before flying to Ireland from the Rennes airport.
Interested in comments on this itinerary, as well as a hotel suggestion in central Rennes. We will drop off the car there so will be on foot our last day there.
Merci beaucoup!
I stayed at the Hôtel Anne de Bretagne and would recommend it. Modern rooms, reasonable rates, easy walk to the train station (if that's where you're dropping off your car) and 1 block away from the pedestrian-only downtown area.
There is a lot to see in the Brittany area, more than is covered in just the Rick Steves book. If you can add a couple of days in the area, I would. As for itinerary review, everyone is different. And I suppose it would be nice to spend nites inside the St. Malo walls, which I didn't do. My preference is to minimize changes of hotels, so if it were my trip I would spend the 4 nites in one location, probably Dinan. The 2 locations are only about a 40 minute drive apart. I used Dinan as a base and went to St. Malo one day as a daytrip; a few hours there were enough for me to feel like I had explored the town. A different day I drove to Dinard which is across the river and has some nice walks along the cliffs; if you are staying in St. Malo you can just take a ferry across.
speaking of Dinan, guidebooks don't make really clear that there are 2 large lots side-by-side. One is pay in advance by the hour, the other you take a ticket and pay when you leave. Do the latter since there are a few hours during the day when parking is free, so you only get charged for hours when pay is in effect.
You can drop the car off at the airport, so you can stay anywhere you wish.
I stayed for a week at the Résidence Appart'City Rennes Saint-Grégoire. I booked through Venere.com
My review:
Hotel name:Résidence Appart'City Rennes Saint-Grégoire. It might be cheaper to book direct. You should check. I used Venere.com
Questionnaire details for review.
Property Characteristics
Cleanliness of rooms - 10
Welcoming - 10
Quietness of rooms - 10
Spaciousness of rooms - 9
Public areas - 10
Staff competence - 10
Quality of service provided - 10
Hotel surroundings - 7
Does the hotel web page correctly describe the property?
Prices quoted - 10
Services and facilities offered - 9
Photographs - 10
Location as indicated on maps - 6
Type and number of available rooms - 9
General Review
How would you rate your overall stay? - 9
Value for money
How do you rate the relationship between price and quality? - 10
User review:
They did not send check-in information to me in a timely manner. Luckily, I got there within their open hours, otherwise, I do not know how I would have gotten in. They sent me some information about that, but it came by email on the day I would have checked in. There would have been no way to access that information, even if I had thought of it. Also, Venere has the name of the street it is on spelled incorrectly, which makes using a gps difficult. There are 3 of these hotels and I went to an incorrect one first. If I had been on foot, that would have been NOT cool.
Where i stayed, you must have a car to get around. You could not have walked to the store or to the town. The hotel was in a industrial estate, away from everything, but it was quiet there at night. No one was around. They had all gone home.
No free extras. Wifi was not free. Phone had to be paid for to be turned on. No welcoming package, only 2 towels for the week. Small bottle of shampoo and a bottle of dish washing soap. Minimal tv stations. 1 had English- BBC News.
You traveled as:
Mature couple
Type of your vacation:
Leisure
We spent a few nights in this area last September. With a car, you might consider the Hotel Le Manior de Rigourdaine. It is tucked away amid fields overlooking the river. Modern, not "old world charm" but quite pleasant and the owner is very hospitable and helpful. As noted, Dinan and St Malo are only about 45 minutes apart, and this place is midway. We couldn't decide between lodging in Dinan or St Malo and this was the perfect solution for us. We preferred Dinan a lot more than St Malo, where we walked around the walls and spent a few more hours wandering, and sampling Breton pastries every 500 feet. We may have given short shrift to St Malo, but we were nearing the end of a 3 week trip and just didn't see much reason to linger in St Malo when Dinan and other attractions were right around the corner. We spent the better part of a day driving the beautiful Breton coast. If timing and taste coincide, consider oysters on the sea wall in Cancale. We only saw Rennes as we changed trains en route to Paris. Have a safe trip.
