Does anyone know of a guided tour to Normandy and Brittany? Rick does not have one, and the only one I found online was Road Scholars, which I have heard can be a little slow (it's also longer than what I'm looking for, which is ideally 7-10 days). I have already been to the castles in the Loire, so I don't need to do that. I normally travel Europe by myself, but I usually just do cities - for this region I expect you need a car, and I don't like to drive, so I thought a tour would be better. I could also try to string together a couple of 1-3 day tours, but that seems like a lot of work to plan. Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions welcome!
Posted by
Washington DC
28084 posts
I visited Normandy and eastern Brittany this summer without a car. It's true that you won't move around terribly efficiently if you're tied to train and bus schedules, but it's doable. I took a one-day Overlord Tour of the D-Day beaches that originated in Bayeux, and I highly recommend something of that type. Getting around the beaches without a vehicle would be very slow, and the Overlord driver/guide provided a lot of valuable information. There are other D-Day tour operators, of course.
The Hotel Churchill in Bayeux does day-trips to Mont-St-Michel, which is a challenging destination without a vehicle.
So I'd say you don't have to give up the idea of visiting that area if you can't find a package tour that works for you. You'd probably save enough money doing it yourself that you could extend the trip by 2 or 3 days (unless time off work is the limiting factor).
My bases were Rouen, Caen, Bayeux (close to Caen, but needed it because of the tour), Rennes and St. Malo. Side trips included Honfleur, Deauville, Falaise, Fougeres, Vitre, Dinard, Dinan. Definitely more than 10 days, of course. My time in northern France fell during July of this year.
Posted by
San Diego
1540 posts
We did not do a multi-day tour, but stayed in Hotel d'Argouges Hotel in Bayeux . We loved it and then did 2 "1 day-full day" tours 1 day to the beaches of Normandy, cemeteries, small villages with significant history of the D-Day event.
Second day we did an all day tour to Mont St. Michel - same guide and same nice new large van (there were 8 of us).
We booked thru Viators and they are a consolidator - so they booked us with Overloard Tours.
If we had more time - we would have like to stay the night on Mont St. Michel.... but had a firm reservation for an apt in Paris for 6 nights.
If you happen to inquire with Overload Tours, you might ask if Adrian is still a guide with them.......he was fantastic, knowledgeable, patient, and gave us plenty of time, so that we did not feel rushed when we made stops at Normandy Beaches, Cemeteries, lunch, et.
Posted by
151 posts
Only using public transport, you can easily reach the most common cities/towns like Rennes, Saint Malo, Dinard, Dinan, Vannes, Auray Quimper, (...) but not smaller towns, and anyway it is true that you lose some time in comparison with renting a car. For your itinerary in Brittany, and in case you are considering private tours to decide the rhythm that suits you (and not only group tours), you may have a look at Visite Bretagne (http://visite.bretagne.free.fr/index.php/en/home.html).