Where to have a home base?

We enjoyed a week in Bayeux in an apartment. Great market there, and easy car trips to coastal towns. We took the train to Bayeux and picked up the car there although there in (was?) only one place to rent from. Did a guided tour of the WWII sites, too.

We haven't taken this trip yet, so I can't give our experiences, but in 55 days (!) we are spending a few days in Paris and then taking the train to Bordeaux (@2 hours). From Bordeaux, we will be driving to Sarlat-la-Canéda for a week. We are staying in a hotel, but there are apartment options through AirBnb that look lovely and are very reasonably priced, as is our hotel. We will drive short distances to Lasceaux IV, Font-de-Gaume and Grotte Pech. We've limited it to three caves, but caves aren't our focus. We will canoe down the Dordogne, visit the Sarlat markets, take walking tours, visit Beynac, Domme, Gardens of Eyrignac Manor and the Marqueyssac gardens. You have two weeks, so others here can tell you what else is close to Sarlat to move on to, such as Toulouse.

We chose the Perigord region because of the Bruno, Chief of Police books by Martin Walker which give such vivid, inviting descriptions of the area.

so many choices. My favorite region is the Dordogne; we no longer drive in Europe so alas no more Dordogne. We have twice rented cottages in villages as a base and enjoyed the small towns, the regional markets, a canoe trip on the Dordogne, the fabulous food, the gardens, the chateaux and of course the neolithic cave paintings of Font du Gaume, Rouffignac and the Lascaux recreations. I don't have too many on line snapshots of our times there but here are two sets:
https://janettravels.wordpress.com/2017/07/25/perfect-place-for-murder-commarque-chateau/
https://janettravels.wordpress.com/2017/08/01/montferrand-du-perigord-and-its-12th-century-stone-church-st-christophe/

Another are we liked a lot was Brittany. We stayed in St. Malo inside the walls in an apartment and enjoyed the local fine dining, walks and using it as a base for nearby towns and sights. We did one day in Auray on the trip to see the neolithic rock alignments around Carnac. https://janettravels.wordpress.com/category/brittany/

It would also be easy to combine Normandy and Brittany e.g. Bayeux and the landing beaches and Etretat.https://janettravels.wordpress.com/category/normandy/

We just returned from 2 weeks in France. We started in Paris (3 nights) train to Bordeaux and immediately picked up a rental car and drove to Bergerac where we stayed in a lovely rental house ("along the river" gite, less than 2 miles from historic center, highlight lodging of our trip). From there we did day trips to the caves, and to Sarlat. Driving back to Bordeaux we did a quick walk in St. Emilion before returning the car in Bordeaux where we stayed for 3 nights, before train back to Paris for 3 nights. That many changes of accommodations might be more than what you're looking for, but it worked well for us.
I was pleasantly surprised at how much there was to do in Bordeaux. The historic center is great for walking and taking in the beautiful old architecture. It seemed to have quite an energetic nightlife, with lots of younger folks out and about on the weekends. We got the 3 day citypass which was worth it for us, especially because we needed the great public transit trams/bus system. We originally chose apartments but changed to a hotel because we needed an elevator for one of our group. There seemed to be a lot of apartments to choose from (we used booking.com). Car rentals are available from the train station and of course there are local/regional trains and buses for day trips. My only caveat about Bordeaux is that there's tremendous construction, especially near the train station, it made for unpleasant driving (it took way longer to return the rental car then I expected due to construction and not clear signage and poor google maps directions).

These are all great starts! Thank you

"My only caveat about Bordeaux is that there's tremendous construction, especially near the train station, it made for unpleasant driving (it took way longer to return the rental car then I expected due to construction and not clear signage and poor google maps directions)." Thanks for this, Sanomh! We will be returning our Avis rental there in May and I know how long construction can take. Nice to have a "heads up".

When returning the car at Bordeaux train station, you should follow the signs to the P4 parking lot, what through me off is when I got to the entrance, both P3 and P4 entrance gates are on the left next to each other, but the sign for P4 wasn't obvious, so I kept on going, which was a big mistake. The 'loop' around the station was made so much worse because of construction and barriers. When you do get to the P4 gate, you feel like you're entering the same garage as P3, and you are, but then you keep driving to cross over to the P4 garage. Not sure that's helpful but hopefully it will save someone.

Thanks, sanomh. I've copied your directions into my itinerary which I'm sure will be very helpful. Yours sounds like so many experiences we've had in Europe!