Normandy and MSM

Bayeux is centrally located, it is home to the famous 1066 tapestry of the Norman conquest, D Day museums, and about 12 miles from the D Day beaches. MSM is about 90 minutes from Bayeux by four lane motorway. We arrived early to beat the hordes from the tour buses. About two hours was plenty at MSM for us so we drove around the bay to Cancale for a marvelous seafood lunch, then drifted back to Bayeux stopping along the way in little towns to buy local cheeses and Calvados. For a great rural B&B about 10 minut3es east of Bayeux check out www.bandbnormandie.com. We stayed at the farm and it was way better than a hotel room, cheaper too. Lots of great info at tripadvisor.com, Normandy forum.

Refinements to what Bets said: Depending exactly on where you are in Bayeux, Honfleur can be an hour and a half away. Maybe more if the Caen north bypass is clobbered with trucks. Also, for some stupid reason, I've noticed a couple of times that eastbound traffic gets backed up at the toll booth east of Troarn. The toll isn't that much (five euro or five bucks, forget which) but, with the gas, things add up. The wasted time would be the killer since there's not much to see along the way. The car from G. Lyon gives me the shudders. What Bet's didn't point out since she didn't want to mislead you, is that the peripherique ring is only a couple of miles from Paris Lyon, but you hit it at about the three o'clock position and get off at about the ten o'clock position. A stinking map will lead you down the path to perdition - - either semicircle has really sucko bad points that you can't miss. Toss a coin if driving all the way across town is any better. Get the darn car somewhere else.

Now my take: The kicker is MSM - - it's about an hour and a half from Bayeux. That's going to slaughter a half day no matter how you do it. Going over late in the afternoon and coming back at night might be one option. Honfleur is my absolute favorite small town in northern France - - I look for excuses to swing through there. But, it's not a destination - - you can absorb all it has to offer in a couple or three hours. With the amount of time you have and the fact that you want to minimize overnight stops, I think leaving early in the morning and stopping for a couple of hours in Rouen and a couple more in Honfleur and then pressing on to Bayeux would do the trick. There's only three or four hours of road time involved. A full day can get you most of the WWII stuff. A day and a half is even better. If you left mid-day after the second night, you could spend a couple of hours at MSM and press on to St Malo (and spend the night within the walls). Two hours is plenty for MSM. St Malo is more interesting, cheaper, and has better grub. On the way back to Paris from St Malo, you could avoid back-tracking and see a couple of more neat places. Fougeres is a really good walled city that's never made the RS books. Chartres has the very best of the notre dame style gothic cathedrals. Driving time along this route is a bit less than five hours all the way into Paris and the longest leg is only about two and a half hours.

More on the car rental. We prefer to take the train to Caen and fetch our rental car right across the street from the Caen RR station. There are 3 or 4 rental agencies there, open from 8AM until 5 or 6PM on Saturdays, unlike an agency in a smaller town. You avoid the Paris traffic outbound and, more importantly, inbound on a weekend where traffic is snarled for miles returning to Paris. Bayeux is only about 15 miles from Caen, an easy drive. The train is relaxing and takes around 90 minutes or so, Paris to Caen. Pretty much hassle free.

Ed did read my mind about not wanting to be too confusing. His suggestion of going back via Fougeres and Chartres is excellent. Fougeres is surprising and often overlooked, though Michelin considers it a not-to-be-missed smaller city, while Chartres is considered the grandest of the Gothic cathedrals.

What George missed is that there ain't no train station in Honfleur - - which still leaves it a long ways from Bayeux/Caen. Also, as I've posted before: from a standing start at a Paris hotel I can drive and be waiting at the front door of the Rouen cathedral before a train-rider shows up.

It seems that the best way to see what you want might be to move every night. We did a similar trip in 2010 but in seven nights. We picked up a car from Budget/Avis located across the street from Le Sablons Metro. Easy exit from the city. With only three days you would have to choose the sights carefully. Here's our suggestion: You could drive to Honfleur visit it and then go on to Bayeaux for the night. You could see the Tapestry and Cathedral and then the beaches and spend the night at MSM (we stayed at La Jacotierre, great small hotel recommended by RS). From there you could take a scenic drive perhaps stopping at St.Malo, Dinan(first to be cut if short of time), Fougeres. We spent one night in Vitres before moving on to Chartres. You could sleep in Vitres and visit Chartre before returning to Paris. This makes a nice loop but as we mentioned you will have to be selective. Note that it is harder to return the car than to pick it up as you are playing beat the clock on your return and you don't know what the traffic will be. Good luck on your planning!

Thanks to George, Bets, and Ed We arrive at Paris Bercy or Lyon at 0900 via overnight EC train from Milan, so we will rent a car nearby and hit the ring road by midmorning. I like the idea of seeing Honfleur on the way to Bayeaux, seeing the tapestry and beaches, etc while spending 2 nights in or around Bayeaux, then driving to see MSM in the late afternoon for a few hours and spending the 3rd night in St Malo. The south diversion on the return to Paris sounds good. Fortunately, we leave Paris on the 30th and will miss the holiday (we were there 20 years ago for Bastille Day). Any thoughts on a favorite neighborhood for our 4 days in Paris? We plan limited museuming and want to spend more time in our "neighborhood" and in walking to sightsee in central Paris. Any experience with a Seine cruise (? at night) or an evening car tour to see the lighted monuments, etc? Thanks again and cheers,
Tom

Ole Bets just throws stuff out there and leaves it to somebody else to clean up the mess. The westbound expressway is neat for escaping to Roissy or something, but the westbound one is a bear - - it passes under the foot of the bridges and doesn't leave you a way across the creek the second time unless you get off, head south, find a place to make a u-turn, and then head back north. Here's the way to do it, pay close attention, take notes. All the car places at G. Lyon are clustered around the southwest corner. The street parallel to the long axis of the station (and to the river) is Bercy. Get on that heading west. You're only going a qurater of a mile to the first turn. You'll cross Blvd Diderot (big, divided, lanes in both directions) right away. Start counting. Pass two streets and hook a left on the third one which is Ledru-Rollin. Ledru-Rollin will take you across the Austerlitz bridge. When you're barely across the bridge, turn righ onto Quai St Bernard. Press on. The road name will change a million times but it's aways Quai Something. Keep watching across the river. Eventually the buildings will end (the last one is the Louvre) and open land will start (the Tuileries). You'll need to be in the right lane. Take the downward right exit and you'll be on the expressway. Now the fun starts. In just a tad over a mile start looking for a couple of white signs on the left. Straight ahead takes you to Pont d'Iena/Trocadero. The exit (left) says Pont de l'Alma and something else (de Gaulle - Etoile, maybe). Get off, going uphill to the left.

As you come off the exit ramp, take a right turn across the d'Alma bridge. I think that's Av George V, but it doesn't matter. Stay with hit until you come to the Champs Elysees (really, really hard to miss - - widest street in the ville). Hook a left and you're almost done. You'll go up the Champs, circle halfway around the Arc, and press on. You'll be moving in the same direction as you come off the traffic circle but the road name will have changed to Grand Armee. Press on. The next traffic circle is Port Mailot. Go halfway around it in the same manner and pass under the peripherique. The road name will have changed to de Gaulle. You'll see route markers saying you're on the N13. Keep going. You'll cross the river a couple of more times and the same road will have become the A14. Directional signs will show that you're heading toward Rouen. Figure the rest of it out for yourself. And yes, I did it from memory. And yes, I've been running those streets since I was a small boy in knickers.

EDIT: There's only one potential glitch and that's missing the d'Alma bridge. If that happens, the expressway will end (I think) prior to the 'd'Lena bridge and you'll be dumped onto Quai Branly. If you find yourself there (it's right at the ET), go ahead and cross the river and work north until you stumble on the Champs or Armee. The streets in that area are a jumble and I probably couldn't explain them even with a map in my paw. All I can do over there is braille myself around until I find something I recognize. But pressing north (away from the river and uphill) will fix the problem. Most of the streets heading within thirty degrees of north will hit the Arc and you can just work the traffic circle until you spot Armee (it's the widest one and heads northwest - - as though you've just driven under the Arc itself heading away from town).