Normandy and WWII sites itinery and amount of time

Your profile indicates you are from Canada, so your choice of stops makes sense. I think you will probably see what you want to see with a quick stop in Bayeux (though I would say it's too little time for an American or a Brit). The Bayeux Tapestry is pretty amazing and worth seeing, if you have not planned to do so. If you can make it to Arromanches at low tide, it's cool to see the remnants of the artificial port created by the Allies during WWII. It would be hard to fit Mont-Saint-Michel into your current schedule; unless you are just driving by for a couple of quick pictures, it's more of a full-day day trip from Bayeux (at least 3 hours round-trip driving, confusing parking that takes some time to figure out, getting from the parking lot to the site is a little time-consuming, too).

Google maps says your drive time alone on Day 3 is 4 hours 40 minutes, so you won't have a lot of time at each of your stops, but if you get an early start, you can probably manage that. Day 4 is definitely manageable.

I agree with your thought that you need another night in Bayeux if you want to do the day trip to Mont St Michel.

Hi,

The Canadian WW2 monument is in Dieppe. I would say to get a dal feel for the area, say from Dieppe to Nord Pas-de-Calais you need another week. The beach towns in the area still have some of the pill boxes if you want to track down more evidence of the war history.

"Sightseeing tour Normandy beaches and Bayeux area"

Are you planning to take one of the guided tours or just tour the sights on your own in the rental car?

Keep in mind that for driving in France you'll require either an International Driver's Permit (which is used in conjunction with your home D.L.) or a certified translation of your D.L. in French. Having one or the other is compulsory!

I've found that having a GPS is also a good idea.

Canadians can consider a visit to the Normandy beaches tailored towards the Commonwealth campaign. That would include the fierce tank battles near Caen where the troops tried to close the Falaise gap. To get a full appreciation, however, a guided tour is almost essential since there are no large monuments or other striking visual features in this area. Tours are not cheap but the background and context to what you are seeing, and what went on in places that have long since returned to farm fields is priceless, in my opinion. History lies in the details which only an expert can point out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falaise_Pocket

One suggestion about your route elsewhere: Why not turn in your rental car in Arras, the base for a Vimy visit, and take the train to Paris from there rather than returning to Rouen?

PS: There is a Canadian museum on the beaches. Privately financed, it tries to cover military history through the second half of the 20th Century. The place was privately financed, in part as a response to the national war museum in Ottawa. I was not sympathetic to its presentations. http://www.junobeach.org/

I think you're doing a lot of unnecessary backtracking, which means a lot of time in the car. Its usually not any more expensive to rent a car in one city and return it in another in France. So start with taking the train to Amiens and renting the car there then move west, ending up in Bayeux (or Caen) to return the car and take the train back to Paris.

If you do Mont St Michel, you could make that your last night. Get there in the evening and spend the night on the island and be first in line the next morning for the Abbey tour. That would put you to about 11 am and you can then return your car in Rennes (or backtracking to Caen wouldn't be that much further) and train back to Paris.

Use ViaMichelin.com to plug in your route and it will help you get a feel for the drive times, as well as tell you where the tolls are.

You COULD start in the west and end up in Amiens, but I personally would never go to Mont St Michel during the day when the tour buses are there. Seeing the throngs of people arriving while we were on our way out was incredible. If you go, spend the night.

EDITED: After seeing the distances all over Normandy, I would definitely add at LEAST one extra night. An hour or so in Etretat would be good and a few hours in Honfleur, but you actually have to GET from place to place and find a place to park. And you lose most of day 1 in transit. Were you planning on touring in Rouen or just picking up the car?

We visited the Normandy D-Day region via a tour. It is one of the very few tours we've ever taken and it was a disappointment. We would have much preferred to rent a car and tour the area ourselves (time wouldn't permit). We have good friends who did rent a car, but regrettably did not have a GPS. When we talked with them upon their return, they said most sites described in books, etc. provide the geographic coordinates of the sites, so a GPS would be almost essential.

I'd also suggest you do some reading on the sites you specifically want to visit (so those sites are placed in the context of the overall Invasion) and particularly study maps. The maps were most important to me. I carried them with me so I could better understand the immensity of the operation. Unless you're knowledgeable of the entire Operation Overlord, some brush-up reading would be good on the complexity of the beach landing vis-à-vis the Canadian paratroopers and the US 101st Airborne Division as well as the Naval Task Force which provided naval gunfire support.

Leave Paris early! Get to Bayeux in time for Day 1 to view the Tapestry (it is amazing) and their very good Battle of Normandy museum (it covers the whole battle not just D-Day and will give you a further appreciation of the battlefields/beaches). You can spend a ton of time visiting the landing day beaches/cemeteries/memorials and jump sites but at least one full day will be needed. We self-toured the sites. Longues Sur Mer - the massive fortified German artillery position - is about 15 minutes from downtown Bayeux and found it a good starting off point. You can head east to Juno or West towards Omaha about 30-minute drive either way. We covered Longues Sur Mer-Omaha Beach/American Cemetery- Point du Hoc in one long yet fantastic day. You will need an additional day for Mont St Michel but Normandy/Brittany are absolutely fabulous areas and you will not be disappointed you spent an extra day, two or three. I can highly recommend the towns of Dinan and St Malo in Brittany. We used Bayeux as our base as we prefer not to be constantly moving and the drives to MsM and towns in Brittany were not bad at all. We stayed at Hotel d'Argouges, which was awesome. Enjoy!