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Normandy & Loire Valley question

Posted by (London) on

Hi everyone,

I'm planning a trip with my mom and sister to Normandy and the Loire Valley. We are deciding between August 27 - September 4, and September 1 - September 10.

I have a hard time with large crowds, and try to plan trips in a way that enables me to avoid them as much as possible. Of course, I realize certain sights like Mont St. Michel will always have crowds, but I am wondering if anyone can offer some perspective about the size of tourist crowds in Honfleur, Bayeux, the D-Day beaches, Amboise, and the chateaux in the Loire Valley at that time of year. I typically find traveling in the fall to be much better crowds-wise than traveling in the summer, but in this case does anyone think there will be a difference between the last week of August and the first week of September? The earlier week is much more convenient for us, which is why I'm asking.

Thanks in advance for your input!

Posted by
8166 posts

go after what the French call " la rentrée" the equivalent is back to school season in the USA
that is after September 1 when everyone en masse is back at work and at school from the long August vacation
so there are less crowds

Posted by
171 posts

I agree with Jazz+Travels. We toured Normandy and the Loire in the second half of September and had no problem with crowds. It is my understanding that everyone in France takes his/her vacation in August so your preferred trip dates beginning in August could have some exposure to large crowds.

What sights are you planning to see in the Loire and Normandy? Are you going to skip Paris?

Posted by
1005 posts

I agree with the other posters--go in September after the rentrée.

Posted by
2087 posts

I like avoiding crowds too, visit for that France almost every year in early June and the number of visitors is ok for me. In this respect September doesn’t differ much from June.

Posted by
1155 posts

Last June, we went to all the places you mentioned (except Mont St-Michel) and the worst crowds by far was in Honfleur. It was a lovely little town, but mobbed with tourists. We saw what we went to see and left to go back to Bayeux where we were staying. We loved Bayeux. All the other places were not too bad at all, and I would think you'd experience less crowds in September than we did in June.

Posted by
9436 posts

I agree w/Sept 1-10, in addition to avoiding French visitors, you'll also avoid more tourists from all other countries.
We've been to all these places in the height of summer and many of them... DDay beaches, Bayeux, Honfleur, Amboise and all the chateaux were not crowded at all. These are large areas and we never encountered crowds.
Mont St Michel, from 10-11 am ish to 5:00 ish is almost always crowded, but before and after is very different.

Posted by
139 posts

The usual recommendation that we followed about Mont St Michel is to stay there (or closeby) overnight. Arrive in the later afternoon your first day, find yourself going in when crowds are departing, enjoy the sunset, wake up the next day and see anything you missed the day before and head out as the crowds start coming in. Magical.

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