How to spend 4 days in Normandy?

HI Brendon Just back from the at least part of the same trip you are describing. We home-based in Bayuex for four nights after driving from Bruges and found that to be a fantastic place to vist these sites from(and a great place to spend a day visiting as well. I do think your first day is too much as described. Rouen and Caen are very large and you are doing a lot of driving trying to hit all of those places. One thing I recommend is visiting the WWII museum in Bayuex before visiting D-day sites-really sets thing up well. Normandie was easy to srive around in and beautiful-you will enjoy it so much. Give some thought to home-basing in Bayuex-it was recommended to me on this site and I readily agree it was a great choice. We stayed at Lion d Orr and enjoyed it very much Mike DC

I agree with Mike about your first day. If you can make it to Honfleur, though, it makes a charming sleep. Generally, I would make your plans contingent on the weather. Go to the beaches on the nicest day. If you are spending the night in or near MSM, I think that is a good plan.

Did anyone mention St Malo?

Hello Brendon, We visited all of the places on your list (except Caen) over four days in June, 2008. However, we were driving west to east, since we had been in Brittany. Our itinerary worked well for us, perhaps it would work for you if you reversed it........ Day one: from Dinan, we visited St. Malo, Mt. Dol Dolmen, then MSM late afternoon. Returned to Dinan (in retrospect, should have used St. Malo as the base, instead of Dinan)..........Day two: drove to Bayeux for the tapestry, visited Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery, then drove on to Les Andeleys for the night..........Day three: visited Giverney, Rouen, toured some of the small villages in the area, returned to Les Andeleys........Day four: intended to visit Jumieges Abbey but we were on the wrong side of the Seine! went on to Honfleur, Etretat, then drove to Hesdin L'Abbe for our last night in France.......Next day, drove to Calais, took P & O ferry to White Cliffs of Dover, on to London....... hope this helps you with your timing......from Dinan or St. Malo it's about a four hour drive to Paris.

You can do Giverny, Rouen, and Honfleur in one day, but that won't give you more than a couple of hours in each of them. I would spend the second day at the Caen museum or the Bayeux WWII museum and the Bayeux tapestry, and then spend an entire day on the D-Day beaches. Then you can go to Mont St. Michel the last day.

I definitely think Rouen, Honfleur and Giverny is too much in one day. Two at the most to do them any justice. The WWII museum in Bayeux is much better than the Caen museum and a lost less expensive. We've stayed at Hotel D'Argouges in Bayeux 5 times and love it. Highly recommend it.