Comments on itinerary to northern France & Dordogne

We stayed at Hotel la belle etoile in La Roque Gageac. Its a very small town, but right on the river, very beautiful. I highly recommend their restaurant. It requires reservations. We wished we would have eaten there a couple nights. We really liked Domme. Very charming. The restaurant we ate at was fine, but nothing to make note of.

We didn't love Rocamadour. The view of it from various vantage points were stunning. Walking up to the churches was crowded and quite touristy.

You don't mention Cahors and St. Cirq Lapopie. Cahors is interesting, very scenic bridge and known for Malbac. St Cirq is absolutely stunning!

This is nicely paced trip, in my opinion. Personally, I would skip Mont St-Michel and Rocamadour. On my visits there were too many crowds and I felt I could have used those days for other, more interesting sites. On your drive south toward the Dordogne, you might want to stop for a few hours at Oradour-sur-Glane.

You are planning a number of nights in Domme. Personal preference, of course, but I'd suggest a slightly bigger town which would offer a greater variety of shops and restaurants. I liked Sarlat and it has the advantage of being near the crossroads of several of highways you will probably need as you explore the area.

I don’t know about the train connections from Bayeux to Dordogne, but instead of that long drive, you might think about renting one car for your northern leg, then taking a train (maybe to Bordeaux) and renting another for Dordogne, unless you enjoy driving. 2 days of driving would be really tiring for me.

Driving from Reims to Amiens and having enough time Laon is worth the detour. Not directly a vibrant place and outstanding, but nice a enough for a visit to my opinion.

Driving from Rouen to Bayeux is visiting the abbey of Jumieges I can recommend and the one of Saint-Martin-de-Boscherville worth a stop. Just west of Jumieges you can take a free ferry for crossing the Seine, relaxing and fun to do. Or make a detour north to Pont de Brotonne and lovely Saint-Wandrille-Rancon with it's abbey. For going to the A13 toll road you can drive to Bourg-Achard or more west along small but very lovely Vieuxport and Aizier.

I wouldn't certainly not skip Le Mont-Saint-Michel for the crowds as they are easy to avoid visiting it in the morning or after late afternoon.

On the way from Bayeux to the Dordogne is worth visiting the historic centre of Le Mans and if possible Oradour-sur-Glane west of Limoges.

A few comments based on my experience living about an hour from Mont-Saint-Michel:

If you can't get there early before the tour buses, can't stay late after they leave, or can't spend the night, I would recommend stopping in the parking area, walking to a decent vantage point, taking a few photos from outside, and moving on to somewhere else. Dinan would be a possible choice.

As far as Domme goes, the Esplanade is an OK place to sleep if you're considering it, but the staff there are overworked and I wouldn't bother with their breakfast. I wouldn't recommend their dining room for dinner either: we much preferred Cabanoix et Châtaignes a short walk away, and recently (as of our visit a few weeks ago) under new management.

If you're tempted to walk (discourage) or drive (encourage) down to Cenac for dinner, I would recommend the Cenac outlet of the local chain Swadee, a Thai restaurant (a bit sweet to comfort the French palate, but passable) over the mysteriously well-rated La Boca. La Boca's staff were great: friendly, engaging, and so on, but the buffet was discouraging. Overly salted food, texture suffering from the food being kept warm, and really not our preference.

2¢

thank you all for these excellent suggestions. We might add a day in Dordogne to see Cahors and Cirq LaPopie. Unfortunately, there aren't trains that get you easily or quickly to the Dordogne. I don't mind driving in France - it is almost as easy as in the US and gives us the option of stops, like in Oradour sur Glane and maybe Le Mans. Plus 400 miles in 2 days is easily doable.

I would really recommend one of the prehistoric caves. We were blown away when we visited 20 years ago and have since visited southern Spain caves which are also spectacular. We had visited Grotte de Font-de-Gaume and Grotte du Pech Merle but will add more to that when we revisit next year. If you visit, book ahead. :)
And yes St-Cirq Lapopie is stunning.

Since you mentioned Oradour sur Glane, I will chime in that it took me a LOT of creative planning to get us there using a combination of a train and a driver to pick us up for the last 50 miles. And it was worth it. It's just an incredible sight to walk around and ponder.

I like driving too and those autoroutes are great. You're covering a lot of ground in two weeks but it looks doable. Reims is a good choice for your first day -- RER or taxi to Gare de l'Est then train from there. I haven't been to Amiens or Laon but I'd like to see them. For Day 8 you might consider one of the well-regarded tours, like Overlord or Dale Booth, instead of driving yourselves.

The conventional advice about MSM is to spend the night to avoid the crowds. You might want to drive there late on Day 8, especially if you're not doing a D-Day tour and can just head there from the beaches. But either way, it will eat up a lot of Day 9. Consider skipping it this trip, or take the advice above to appreciate from a distance and move on. Eyeballing the parking lot might tell you how crowded the Mont itself will be.

I liked visiting Domme but it's pretty small. We stayed in Beynac, but alas the great B&B seems to be no more. Sarlat might be the best base for several days, with more dining choices than anywhere else.

On Day 17, don't try to drive from Toulouse to CDG for a flight that same day. High risk of missing it. Either fly from Toulouse with a good connection or drive up the day before. Maybe there's a TGV from Toulouse right to CDG -- but again, the day before.

There's bus service from Limoges to Oradour-sur-Glane. It's not frequent, and I don't know about weekends; I may have made the trip on a week day.

Oradour isn't really a quick stop. In addition to the ruined town, there's an excellent memorial/museum that takes time to absorb. I think I spent a couple of hours there and then had to rush through the townbecause of the bus schedule, but I'm a read-every-word person in places like that.

Limoges itself has an attractive historic center and is known for its decorative-art museums with good coverage of enamels and porcelain.

On one of the other driving routes suggested by ViaMichelin you have Poitiers, which has a very attractive, hilltop historic center and some important, very old churches.

I'm another who was unhappy with Rocamadour. The lower part of town is basically one historic street that now houses an unbroken string of tourist cafes and junky souvenir shops. I ran out of time due to the incredibly long walk from the nearest bus stop and unexpectedly heavy traffic on the shoulderless highway, so I didn't see the uphill religious area.