Travel in Normandy to Bruges

We did the same route in reverse (from Bruges to Bayeux) in 2010. It is a bit of a drive, we stopped in Honfleur to break it up. It is about 4.5 hours if you drive straight through. The car is useless in Bruges, but is a necessity in Normandy and will get you to Brussels airport. Our hotel provided instructions for parking in Bruges and we left it garaged there. We enjoyed both Normandy and Bruges--you have a nice trip planned.

We stayed in an apartment in Bruges in April 2013 for a week. We had our rental car with us. The place was on Ezelstraat, a couple of blocks from the ring and the Ezelpoort. There was only metered parking on the street in front of our place, but our host told us we could park just about anywhere on the street outside the ring and there would be no charge and no problems. That's what we did and he was right. We parked in a business/residential area where there were no time limitations. The grocery store we used was right there (we did not park in their parking lot) as well as a bank on the corner where I could go inside to use the ATM.

This is a PDF of the parking guide for the city: https://bezoekers.brugge.be/files/uploads/document/mobiliteitsplan_2.pdf. Note that the the 4th language used is English. A map of the city is included. The area inside the ring is quite small and walkable, and we walked just about everywhere -- except when we took the canal tour boat.

Also please note that parking in the underground garages is typically 8,70 Euro per day. That's cheap compared to other city parking garages we have used. However, the garage at the train station is even cheaper at 3,50 Euro per day.

We used our car to get out into the countryside a bit and kept it because we were going on into the Netherlands. Brussels is a short train ride from Bruges. You might be able to return your car in Bruges unless you want to explore outside Bruges a bit or drive to the airport in Brussels.

In June/July 2008 we also did it in reverse - kind of. After renting bicycles in Brussels (at The Cyclist's House) we took them by train to Brugge (aka Bruges), then biked thru Western Flanders, by way of Ieper (aka Ypres) and Kortrijk (aka Courtrai) before returning the bikes in Brussels. We took a train to Lille, and picked up our rental car (Europcar has generally had the best deal for us, trip after trip) and headed west, thru Normandy, for a bit of Brittany. Driving along the coast was a breeze, despite a torrential rainstorm part of the way, and we stopped off at Mont Saint Michel, then Cancale for oysters and frites, and reached St. Malo before nightfall. Two stages of the Tour de France later, we backtracked by car to Bayeux and other locations in Normandy, turning in the car before taking a train to Paris. Don't recall exactly where we turned in the car, but suspect it was Caen.

So we avoided driving in Paris, had a car for touring Normandy on our schedule, and picked up the car in France, avoiding the extra charges if we'd picked up and returned a car in different countries. Should work in either direction. By the way, bikes are a great way to see western Belgium, a very bicycle-friendly place, but not the fastest way, and the trains are great, too.

To my opinion driving from Normandy to Lille is not a bad idea if you will keep the car. From Lille there are every hour trains with a change in Kortrijk to Bruges, takes 1:19 / €20,- pp. On the way you can visit Amiens (cathedral), Arras (stunning main square) or look around in downtown Lille, close to railwaystation Lille Flanders.
If you want keeping the car also in Bruges (depending the drop off costs?) the quickest route from Honfleur is along the Atlantic coast by following tollways: E44 / E402 / E40. Or following tollways E44 / E15 (A1) / E17 / E403 along Amiens and Lille.

If you get the car at Paris Nord you can be on the freeway in two miles and on easy four-lanes in two blocks. Once you clear the peripherique you follow the same well-signed route number all the way to Caen and will beat the train getting there.

Lille has merit for dropping the car. But, for some odd reason, every once in a while the second country drop fee between France and Belgium isn't the heart-stopper you'd expect -- I've seen it down around fifty bucks a couple of times.

If you stick with trains you'd have to drop the car at either Caen or Paris and then, from Caen, make your way across town to the departure station. If you drop it in Paris ( I don't know if you'd leave from Nord or Est but I suspect the latter) I don't know where a car place is at Est and getting back into Nord isn't that hard, but the rental garage has separate entrances and exits so finding the entrance ramp beside the hamburger joint will take a bit of planning and wiggling.

Thank you all for the great suggestions and affirmation of our plan. Love the biking idea-- we hoped to do some biking so will add that to our agenda. btw, we had originally planned on dropping the car in Bruges but unfortunately, the drop off fees we've found have been 300+ euros when changing countries-- for that, we can pony up for train tickets in Belgium!