Will be in Paris and my husband wants to go to Normandy to see Saint Michel. Is it easy to get train and rent a car or should we take a tour? Will have 14 and 11 year olds with us. How far is it? Thanks!
Posted by
Santa Rosa, CA, USA
1446 posts
We did this a number of years ago. We took the train from Paris to Bayeux. At Bayeux a taxi took us to our hotel. The next day we took the tour van from the Churchill Hotel for a tour of the battlefields. Dale Booth was our tour guide - he was with a company that is no longer in existence - now he has his own tour company. I highly recommend a guided tour of the battlefields! You learn so much to a depth that you would not if you were on your own. Not sure if the battlefields are of interest to you in addition to Saint Michel. At that time you could take a one day bus tour to Saint Michel, leaving from the Churchill Hotel. Instead we rented a car in Bayeux and drove ourselves to Saint Michel which was a very easy drive. These were exceptional stops and a day in Bayeux with the WWII museum was great. Bayeux is a wonderful town.
Posted by
Milwaukee, WI, USA
196 posts
Logistically, I would recommend taking a tour from Paris to Mont St. Michel if it is going to be a day trip. The long day will start around 7 am and finish around a little after 9 pm back in Paris. Let someone else do the driving. Various tour companies in Paris offer these daytrips both guided & unguided (cheaper). One small advantage to the tours (but possibly significant depending on the time of year) is that you will get a tour ticket to use in the separate tour line to enter the abbey at the top of the Mont. A shorter and faster line.
The alternative is to plan to spend a night in Bayeux. This would involve taking a morning train from Gare St. Lazare in Paris; the early morning train will require a change in Caen (no big deal), the next train out is direct to Bayeux. Both would get you there in plenty of time to catch one of the afternoon tours of the Normandy battlefields and the American Cemetery. The next morning, you can do one of the all day tours to Mont St. Michel (also includes tour ticket to the abbey) and be back in time to catch the 6:35 pm train back to Paris (let the tour company know you need to make this train and they will probably drop you off at the rail station; they are aware people are trying to do this). As Sharon says, a rental car would give you more flexibility and you can do that in either Paris or Bayeux and Bayeux is, indeed, a wonderful town.