Hello everyone. My wife and I are planning a trip along the north coast of France from probably Dunkirk to St. Malo. I've been reading previous posts, and have gotten some good ideas for places to stop. We will be renting a car in Lille on Oct 14 and returning the car in Rennes on Oct 23, so we have a decent amount of time for our trip. We currently have things like Nausicaa, Honfleur, Mont St. Michel, Bayeux, the Normandy Beaches, and Giverny on our list of places we can visit. We would also like to possibly tour a cider facility. What we are truly looking for is more of a local experience rather than the standard tourist things like walking paths on the coast, sitting in cafes having wine and cheese and watching people, and just getting to know the local culture. We would also like to see a couple of chateaux and churches. We are also thinking of staying in a B&B in the St. Malo area for the last few days. We are planning on this to be a relaxing trip with no real set schedule, so if we decide we want to take a drive in to Giverny for a day we can without feeling that we are compromising something else. As far as distance is concerned, 100-130 kilometers one way for a day trip would be no big deal for us. I can provide more info if it helps. Just looking for other things to do. Thanks!
Posted by
IJzendijke, The Netherlands
2085 posts
Welcome to the forum. I like your plan. What first comes to my mind to really enjoy the trip is not to plan too much and so giving room to explore as much as possible. But for doing some planning is the best thing I think just buying a set of Michelin Departements France maps (yellow cover, scale 1/150.000) and look for places marked with (a) star(s) and the green lined scenic roads. With using Google Streetview you can have an impression about the places you plan to visit.
You can also think to pick up the car in Arras instead of Lille if coming from Paris.
Posted by
OP
3 posts
Thanks for the response, Wil. I lived in Lille about 20 years ago, so we are going to spend a couple of days there for nostalgia purposes. We're flying into Brussels and taking the train to Lille. I've looked at the Michelin guides, and they certainly look like the way to go.
Posted by
IJzendijke, The Netherlands
2085 posts
I was a bit worried that everybody started to point to places to see and before you know you wil have a bucketlist, but then it´s to my opinion no spontanious trip anymore.
Your plan reminds me about our holiday to Bretagne back in the late eighties and following the coastal route starting in Knokke, Belgium in the time there was no freeway and no bypasses. So you still needed to drive through places, time consuming but seeing more, I still have that map with the route marked on it. At the end of that long long day we arrived at Le Mont-Saint-Michel, tired but satisfied we made it (and our old Peugeot too) and enjoyed our meal in one of the restaurants just on the mainland. In that period this place was already touristic but had kept more it´s innocence what made it so attractive, but nowadays this is gone I´m afraid.
Looking back it looks more romantic than it really was, but nevertheless you had the feeling discovering the land and having so a more intense and more rememberable experience. With just working down a bucketlist you won´t have that to my opinion. With the time you have you can move around at a leisurely pace with room for spontanious discoveries, making your plan so appealing to me.
Northern France (Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Picardie) has not the reputation for having spectacular highlights, except a few, but I think it still has that innocent side of France that makes it so worth to explore. It still has so many tranquil places and you can experience France more the way it is and the French more the way they are in their own habitat, good for people watching. As you lived in Lille you certainly know where I´m talking about.
Enjoy your trip!