Anyone have any advice about staying in Normandy. We were going to take the train and stay (maybe Honfleur), but it looks like we would need to rent a car out there just to get around after our tour. Any thoughts.
I like Honfleur quite a bit. Good restaurants and good hotels there. A bit of a drive (1.5 hrs, maybe a little less) to the Normandy beach landing and other sites. For those, I’d stay in/near Bayeux. Depending on how long you plan to be in the area, a night or two in Honfleur and a night or two in Bayeux is ideal (we spent 2 nights in Honfleur and 3 in Bayeux, from there touring WW2 sites for 2 full days, which was ideal). Driving is easy. We picked up a car at CDG and drove to Normandy, stopping along the way to Honfleur at Giverny (Monet’s garden). Drove from Honfleur to Bayeux on a Sunday, stopping in Caen to visit the WW2 museum and then stopped to view the tapestry before checking in to the hotel outside of Bayeux, which was very convenient to and from the invasion sites.
Thanks Mark!
We stayed in Caen, which was pretty cool. Hornfleur is prettier.
Pics from Normandy (and Giverny) along with thoughts on places to visit, etc. below.
Thanks Andrew, I forgot about your amazing thread. Now I’ve got more reading to do on Paris links.
If you find yourself near Le Neubourg on a Wednesday, the farmers’ market is amazing.
So I’ve been to Normandy for visiting maybe five or six times. Each time we stay in Bayeux. It is a nice town with a few hotels, and overall central to where you want to be. Highly recommend it.
And again, if anyone wants a tour guide, I can highly recommend Normandy Insight. HIGHLY recommended. We have been with the guide, Sean, almost every visit. He is a historical encyclopedia but he also keeps it interesting and entertaining at all times. And he has access to places that most people don’t get to see.
I have said this before and I will say it again… This is truly a wonderful little hotel.
George
On May 7, 2014, before the 70th Anniversary, my wife and I were the only persons on Omaha Beach, below Normandy American Cemetery, around 10:00AM (low tide), walking along tidal pools and a wrecked D-Day military vehicle, newly exposed from the sand (but out of picture view). She was wearing her long gray Burberry coat, and I was wearing faded blue jeans, my gray New York Fed fleece jacket, and a dark blue windbreaker. We ended up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
A tide table for St.-Malo, westward of Omaha Beach, corroborates our timing: http://tides.mobilegeographics.com/locations/5480.html?y=2014&m=5&d=7
