We will be driving from Bayeux to Saumur in mid-September. To break up the three-hour drive, along the way are there any sights worth stopping to see or taking a slight detour to see? Any particularly picturesque villages to visit?
Posted by
506 posts
If you have time make a detour to Mont Saint-Michel & Dinan; very historic and worth the drive.
Jean
Posted by
Florida, USA
12172 posts
Fontenay Abbey was nice graves of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Richard the Lionheart. I also liked Chinon because the fortress there is a completely different sight than other Loire chateaux.
Posted by
Boston
4132 posts
Brad, I think you mean Fontevraud. Fontenay is in Burgundy.
Posted by
Washington DC
27192 posts
The direct route takes you through Falaise. The town itself is not very attractive; it was obliterated during the invasion. But there's a new museum there about civilian life during the war, which also covers Resistance activities. I thought it was very interesting, and there is English material posted throughout. I enjoyed it even though I had already been to the museums in Caen, Bayeux and St.-Mere-Eglise.
Posted by
L'Occitanie, France
10217 posts
Nothing major (except Angers as Andrew said) but we always follow the official signs along the way that indicate local chapels, neolithic standing stones and graves, Roman ruins (yes, even in the north), fontains, old wash houses, sometimes local museums or other exhibits not in guidebooks but advertised in the area. In this region (but more across the Loire from Saumur) there will be a lot of troglodytes carved out of the soft stone where the majority of the population lived until 1900. We never miss those.