We we be driving from Mont St. Michel to Paris where we need to return our rental car by 6:00pm; so we want to take a fairly direct driving route to Paris and stop somewhere on the way for a nice long lunch/stroll break. Anyone know of such a direct route with a good stopping point? Someplace easy to park, etc...since we won't have a lot of time.
I can't recommend anywhere in particular... but highway restops in France (and Germany) often have surprisingly good food.
What makes this tough is finding a place of the Autoroute, yet close to parking so you don't lose 2 hours getting in and out. With planning and the help of Viamichelin.com I'd suggest Honfleur.
We stayed in Honfleur and it was lovely.
oops, I should have given more detail. Prior to Mont St. Michel we will have driven from Paris to Normandy and will have already visited Honfleur, Bayeux, Caen etc... I thought we'd try a different route back to Paris to see something new. If we had more time I would definitely like to see something in the Loire, but I think that loop would take too long to return the car by 6:00pm. If there are no suggestions, we will just go back through Normandy. We are staying in the Paris area for some time, so we can always go back to the Loire.
OK. Thanks for adding that information. I'll try again. What about staying in Arromanches? It's a pretty little seaside town with a D-Day museum.
If you come back to say you'll have already seen the D-Day sites, then I can only respond that the Loire is too far for you to visit and return your car by 6.
Maybe Giverny or Rouen.
Thanks for the suggestions; I will look into each of them.