day trip paris to Bayeux to Normandy Beaches

This has been frequently discuss and with the conclusion that it is very difficult to do a day trip from Paris for variety of reasons unless you plan to only visit one or two specific sites. Either scroll back for a few pages or use one of the search methods to find the prior postings.

Joe,

As the previous post mentioned, that's somewhat difficult to do as a day trip from Paris, given the travel times involved and other factors. Two options for you to consider:

1.) If your Itinerary will allow, spend at least one night in Bayeux and take a BattleBus tour. I'd suggest pre-booking the tour. It will provide you with a very comprehensive look at the history of the landings. Their Guides are outstanding! They depart from Bayeux at 08:00 sharp so require tour members to stay in Bayeux.

2.) Check en.parisvision.com/27-normandy-and-landing-beaches.htm regarding day tours from Pairs. They take care of all the transportation and other details, but the tours aren't cheap! Have a look at TripAdvisor for reviews of these tours.

I chose to use BattleBus Tours and would highly recommend them!

Happy travels!

Hi Joe,

If you really wanted to try to do this as a day-trip, you can use the www.tgv-europe.com site as it lets you search all the French trains. When you do the search, just select your country as either Canada or Great Britain as it will direct you to Rail Europe if you choose USA.

The trains vary from about 2:05 to 2:28 travel time one-way. Once you are in Bayeux it is about a ten-to-fifteen-minute walk into the town center where the info booth is. There they can direct you to the proper buses that will get you out to the beach(es) that you wish to see. Just be aware that the buses only depart about once every hour or so.

It certainly can be done, so long as you are willing to start early enough and end late enough, and are willing to limit yourself to at most two major sites to see.

If you wish to see more than this, or on a more relaxed pace than this, then I would recommend you not try and do this without a tour, or at least not as a day-trip.

You might consider taking train to Bayeux and renting a car for the day. Rick's recommended car rental is a short walk from the station. We stayed in Bayeux for 4 days and rented the car (about $60 total including gas) for one day to get to beaches, Arromanches and Ste Mere Eglise.

Check with Fat Tire Tours, which provides for train tickets to and from Bayeux and arranges for a tour of Normandy Beaches. The tour allows you to see the major sights, though it certainly is not as good as others that more extensive and expensive. However, it offers a chance to go from Paris to Bayeax, tour the Normandy Beaches, and then return to Paris all on the same day.

Thanks to all of you who gave me suggestions for the day trip to Normandy from Paris. Appreicate it.

JOE