• CONTACT US if you have any problems registering for the forums.

Planning a trip to Brittany

Pauline

Forums Admin
We've done two great trips to Brittany (thanks to Slow Europe members helping me plan them) and are planning to return next week. I should have planned this earlier but was not sure we would be able to fit this trip in.

Our first trip was a week in Cancale, near St Malo. We took our car (we live in the UK) on the ferry from Poole to St Malo. Our second trip, last year, was a week near Carnac in southern Brittany and a week in Morlaix in the north west. We took our car on the Plymouth to Roscoff ferry for that trip.

This time I am thinking of a week on the north coast between St Malo/Dinard and Morlaix. I think this includes the Emerald Coast in the eastern part and the Pink Granite Coast in the western part. I found a nice apartment on Airbnb in Saint-Lunaire, a town on the coast west of Dinard. We spent a few hours in Dinard on our first trip and that area is beautiful. Any thoughts on this location?
 
When I do street View around Saint-Lunaire I don’t see any cafes. Maybe this town is too small.

We loved Morlaix but I would like to try a different area. I am looking at Lannion, near the Pink Granite Coast. I found this interesting place but Steve just vetoed it.
 
I think Dinan is a very good base because itself is beautiful, and it is in the middle of many points of interest. If you want to go further west, the landscape has a wilder beauty, but there may be a lesser concentration of points of interest. The beautiful villages around there that I noted are Perros-Guirec and Barfleur.
 
Booking last minute for June is not a great idea. There are a lot of places but when I look at them, they don't look great. And it takes so much time reading through listings and reviews!

I found a good looking place in Perros-Guirec, but when I asked for more details found it is on a main street with traffic. I thought I found a nice place in Dinan, but Steve did not like it (looks musty). The place that we both liked in
Saint-Lunaire
took a 2 night booking in the middle of the week I was looking at.

I found a very nice place in Granville (Normandy - close to the Cherbourg ferry), a guest house on the grounds of the owners house, 5 minutes walk to town, great reviews - but the place is very small. Every review is positive but says cosy, small, little. They do not have any photos showing the whole room, just closeups - and that is always a hint. I asked and it is 34 square meters, about 350 square feet.

I am in that mood of "I don't know what I want". I want to be in a town but not too big of a town and not too small of a town. I want a quiet place but I want to be able to walk to a cafe.

The Granville option is good except for the size of the house. Granville was recommended to me on the forums two years ago when I first started planning. It looks like an interesting town and an easy drive from the Cherboug ferry which is the best for us. It runs from Poole, an hour's drive from home, and is only 4 1/2 hours so you can do a daytime ferry. We would take an afternoon ferry, then overnight near Cherbourg before heading to a rental.

I also started looking on the south coast (thinking it might be warmer). I found two apartments in Pont-Aven but maybe they are too much in the middle of town (one photo shows the view of the church bells from the house - do they ring all night?).

We will decide in the next couple of days and may just end up staying home.
 
The apartments in Pont-Aven are right on the busy main street in town.

It was probably the teddy bear in this photo that put Steve off for the Dinan place.

teddy.jpg
 
Granville is a very nice town. Must not miss the Dior Museum.
A beautiful village not far from there is Genets. The small village actually has two good restaurants. And it is the traiditonal starting point for the walk to Mont Saint Michel at low tide. You can sign up at the mairie and must follow a guide, otherwise it can get dangerous. You can choose to walk back or take a bus back.
 
This is the house we rented in Genets. We can't wait to be back. It is beautiful and has a viewi of MsM from the living room and from the garden. The kitchen is among the best equipped I have seen in my experience of renting. It is on the edge of the village.
Although it has 3 bedrooms and is big, we found it comfortable for 3 persons maximum as there is only one - very big, very nice - bathroom.
 
That house looks great! It is booked for June - too bad.

I think I found a small house on the outskirts of Dinard. If this works out, we are going!
 
St Suliac, on the Rance river between St Malo and Dinan, is also a lovely village strategically located.
 
And this place ono the port of Dinan, one of my favorite spots of France.
 
And this one that I bookmarked, again and of course on the Port of Dinan, has a lot of available days in June.
 
Thanks so much for those @Parigi ! But I booked before seeing these posts. I will put those on my short list for next time. This is the house I booked:

Small house in a residential area on the outskirts of Dinard, 500m from the sea where we can take the coast trail into Dinard.

Looking at places these last few days I realized that I want to be in the center of a town, but I don't want all that comes with that - traffic, noise, no outside area. I look at places right on the water and I think they are probably musty and the owners will use air fresheners which I hate. I wanted to be right on the Pink Granite Coast only to find out that Steve thought it was all too wild and remote after our last trip.

For us I think Dinan or Dinard are a good choice. I also realize what a good place we had two years ago in Cancale, just east of St Malo. It was a small house attached to the owner's grand house, with a lovely garden, right on the edge of the central part of the small town so we could easily walk to cafes and shops. I thought the upstairs bedroom was stuffy, but after looking for better places I realize that is a small complaint.
 
We will take the afternoon ferry from Poole (one hour from us) to Cherbourg and overnight in Cherbourg. The next day we will drive to Dinard and visit a few places on the way (Granville). I rejected the Granville tiny house not because of its size but because we did a street view around Granville and thought it looked too busy and did not have a nice place to walk along the port. We will see it in person to see how it looks.

For our week in Dinard I want to do some walking on the coast trail, visit St Malo again, visit Dinan again, drive west along the coast to see more of the area.
 
I would recommend Saint-Cast-le-Guildo and Concarneau, both beautiful and tranquil. St Malo too of course, but it tends to be crowded in June...
 

How to Find Information

Search using the search button in the upper right. Search all forums or current forum by keyword or member. Advanced search gives you more options.

Filter forum threads using the filter pulldown above the threads. Filter by prefix, member, date. Or click on a thread title prefix to see all threads with that prefix.

Sponsors

Booking.com Hotels in Europe
AutoEurope.com Car Rentals

Recommended Guides, Apps and Books

52 Things to See and Do in Basilicata by Valerie Fortney
Italian Food & Life Rules by Ann Reavis
Italian Food Decoder App by Dana Facaros, Michael Pauls
French Food Decoder App by Dana Facaros, Michael Pauls
She Left No Note, Lake Iseo Italy Mystery 1 by J L Crellina

Share this page

Back
Top