Road Trip/long weekend trip to France

clogher71

Hi All
I am thinking about taking my wife to France for a long weekend, 3/4/5 days in our Mk1 MX5. We have never done anything like this before, or been to France, she is not fully sold on the idea yet, so if we go I need to impress so she wont mind going on a road trip again!!. We are thinking about going at the end of April. We probally would be sailing into Roscoff and returning by Cherbourg or visa-versa(to suit ferrys). So I am looking for advice/ suggestions on places to stay(on a budget), places to go, scenic routes, museums, markets, restaurants. I hope this is not too broad of question. Any advice or suggestions to help me put an itinerary/route together would be much appricated....

P. Breathnach

There is too much good stuff between Roscoff and Cherbourg for me to be able to narrow down the options a lot.

First thing to see is that just about everybody manages to adjust to driving on the right with no great difficulty. It is particularly easy coming through Roscoff, as you don't have a town to navigate.

I suggest that you try to stick near the coast, as the north Brittany coastline is very scenic, and there are a number of very appealing small port towns like Paimpol and Tréguier. As you progress eastward, you come on three of the "biggies": the walled town of St Malo, flattened in WW2 and reconstructed fully pretty well as it used to be; inland a bit is Dinan, another walled town that wasn't too badly affected by the war, and retains some charming medieval buildings; then there is "la merveille", the Mont St Michel, which is breathtaking -- it took my breath away when I was a very callow 16-year-old, and unappreciative of architecture, history, and beauty.

When you arrive in Normandy, you are in country that has been re-defined by WW2. Nearly all the towns were very badly damaged, so you don't get so much of the old stuff there. You might be interested in the war history. Utah Beach is the closest to your route, and towns that were important in the first hours of the D-Day landings, like Ste. Mère Eglise and Ste Marie le Mont are close by. If an earlier invasion interests you, you might manage the time to go as far as Bayeux and see the tapestry (and the only town in that part of France which was relatively undamaged in the war; it's quite pretty).

Accommodation in the area is relatively cheap except in a handful of places like inside the walled town of St. Malo.

I hope you like seafood, because the seafood in Brittany is superb.

clogher71

Thanks for that P.B. I am thinking about going at end of April, and hopeing to get some 'top down' weather. Thinking its going to be expensive for a couple of days though, will keep the reserch going.....

P. Breathnach

You have to decide your own priorities. I enjoy travelling to France so much that I go there every year, usually for about a week off-season (the joys of being retired, and owning my own time).

The biggest single component is the ferry price. I managed to get return bookings for April for €284, cabin included. I reckon I will get a good part of that back in what I save on the bootful of wine that I will bring home, and the 2 kilos of tobacco for my pipe.

Brittany is almost as rainy as Ireland, and my impression is that it as about 2 degrees warmer. It's not really a destination for sunseekers.

Once you're there, I think typical holiday costs (accommodation, meals, etc) are still a bit lower than here. The exception is petrol: that costs 20-30c more.

If the ratio between price and expectation of enjoyment is not good at the moment, why not keep the idea on the agenda, perhaps for September, and see if you can spread the ferry cost over a slightly longer trip?