Brittany: Mont-Saint-Michel, Saint-Malo and Quimper

1. Jour 1 : Paris by TGV to Mont-Saint-Michel

   Paris Montparnasse by TGV to Rennes, then Mont-Saint-Michel

   • Environ 1 h de route
   • Repas du soir
   • Nuit : Mont-Saint-Michel
   Détail du jour 1

   A driver meets you at Charles de Gaulle or Orly, or at your Paris hotel if you arrived early, and brings you to Montparnasse station, where your See Sight Tours guide meets the group. The TGV takes about an hour and a half to Rennes, the Breton capital, and our minivan and driver are waiting outside the station. It is about an hour north to the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel. We arrive in the late afternoon, as the day visitors start to leave, and cross by the shuttle and the footbridge with an overnight bag; your main luggage stays in the van. Check in on the island or right beside it. In the early evening your guide takes you up the Grande Rue and along the ramparts, watching the light go over the bay and, if the tide is coming in, the water racing across the sands. Then we sit down together for a welcome dinner, with the abbey floodlit above.

   Compris

   • Pick-up at Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG), Orly (ORY) or a central Paris hotel
   • TGV from Paris Montparnasse to Rennes
   • The shuttle across to Mont-Saint-Michel
   • Evening walk on the ramparts with your guide
   • Welcome dinner on or beside the island

   Option plus facile : Stay in the lower village for the evening and skip the climb to the ramparts.

   Option plus active : Walk the footbridge both ways instead of the shuttle, about 2.5 km each way from the shuttle stop.

   Temps libre : Late evening free on the island

   Activité : Plan to land in Paris by about 11 am to make the early-afternoon train; the meeting time is confirmed with your final itinerary. The Grande Rue is steep and cobbled. Bring a small bag for the night.

   

2. Jour 2 : The abbey at opening, then Saint-Malo

   Mont-Saint-Michel to Saint-Malo

   • Environ 1 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Saint-Malo
   Détail du jour 2

   We climb to the abbey at opening (9 am from May to August and 9:30 in September on the current timetable, confirmed when we book), ahead of the first shuttles of day visitors. Your guide takes you through the abbey church on the summit, the cloister that hangs over the bay, and the Merveille, the 13th-century Gothic monastery buildings stacked up the north face of the rock. Mont-Saint-Michel and its bay have been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1979. Back across to the van, we cross into Brittany and drive about an hour west to Saint-Malo, the walled port of corsairs and explorers. After a sit-down seafood lunch inside the walls, your guide walks you round the ramparts, about 2 km of wall with views over the beaches and the forts on their islands. Most of the old town was destroyed in 1944 and rebuilt stone by stone. At low tide we walk out to the Grand Bé, the island where the writer Chateaubriand is buried. The evening is free.

   Compris

   • The abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel at opening with your guide
   • Sit-down seafood lunch in Saint-Malo
   • Walk on the Saint-Malo ramparts with your guide
   • The Grand Bé on foot at low tide

   Option plus facile : Skip the abbey climb and spend the morning in the lower village; in Saint-Malo, walk one stretch of the ramparts and wait at a café by the Porte Saint-Vincent.

   Option plus active : Walk the full rampart circuit before breakfast on the Mont, then the long beach of the Sillon in Saint-Malo in the evening.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Saint-Malo

   Activité : A few hundred steps through the village and abbey, then about 5 km in Saint-Malo. The Grand Bé crossing depends on the tide and may move to day 3.

   

3. Jour 3 : Dinan and the oysters of Cancale

   Saint-Malo to Dinan, then Cancale and back to Saint-Malo

   • Environ 2 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Saint-Malo
   Détail du jour 3

   A short morning drive, about 35 minutes up the Rance valley, brings us to Dinan, a medieval town on a ridge above the river, ringed by nearly three kilometres of walls. Your guide walks you through the half-timbered streets around the Place des Merciers, past the Saint-Sauveur basilica, where the heart of the knight Bertrand du Guesclin is kept, and down the steep, cobbled Rue du Jerzual to the old port on the Rance, where boats tie up below the viaduct. Lunch is sit-down in the old town. In the afternoon we drive about 50 minutes east to Cancale, the oyster town on the bay. At the stalls by the harbour, oysters are opened for you to eat on the sea wall with a squeeze of lemon, looking out to Mont-Saint-Michel on a clear day. On the way back we stop at the Pointe du Grouin, the headland at the tip of the Emerald Coast, before an evening free in Saint-Malo.

   Compris

   • Walk through Dinan with your guide: the Place des Merciers, Saint-Sauveur and the Rue du Jerzual to the port
   • Sit-down lunch in Dinan
   • Oyster tasting at the Cancale market
   • The Pointe du Grouin headland

   Option plus facile : The van can meet you at the bottom of the Rue du Jerzual, so you walk down the steep street but not back up.

   Option plus active : Walk the Dinan town walls, then the coastal path from Cancale harbour to the Pointe du Grouin, about 7 km, while the van meets you at the headland.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Saint-Malo

   Activité : About 6 to 9 km on foot. The Rue du Jerzual is steep and cobbled. If you do not eat oysters, the market sells other shellfish and there are cafés on the quay.

   

4. Jour 4 : Tréguier and the Pink Granite Coast

   Saint-Malo to Tréguier, then Perros-Guirec and Ploumanac'h

   • Environ 2.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Perros-Guirec
   Détail du jour 4

   We head west along the north coast, about an hour and fifty minutes, to Tréguier, a small cathedral town above the estuary of the Jaudy, with a half-timbered square and the Gothic cathedral of Saint-Tugdual and its cloister. Lunch is sit-down in the town. Then it is twenty minutes on to Perros-Guirec, check in, and out onto the Pink Granite Coast in the late afternoon, when the light warms the rock. Your guide walks you along the Sentier des Douaniers, the old customs officers' path, from Trestraou beach to the lighthouse at Ploumanac'h. For about 3 km the path weaves between enormous pink granite boulders worn by wind and sea into shapes the locals have named, with the Sept-Îles bird islands out to sea. We finish in the harbour at Ploumanac'h, and the evening is yours, with plenty of seafood restaurants on the beach and in the port.

   Compris

   • Tréguier: the cathedral of Saint-Tugdual and its cloister
   • Sit-down lunch in Tréguier
   • The Sentier des Douaniers from Trestraou beach to Ploumanac'h lighthouse with your guide

   Activités en option

   • A boat trip around the Sept-Îles bird reserve from Perros-Guirec, where it runs on your date (priced at booking)

   Option plus facile : Walk only the last kilometre of the path to the lighthouse from the Ploumanac'h side; the van drops you close by.

   Option plus active : Carry on past the lighthouse to the Ploumanac'h harbour and the oratory of Saint-Guirec, about 5 km in all.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Perros-Guirec

   Activité : About 5 km on foot. The coastal path is mostly well made but has steps and rocky sections; stay on it, as the boulders are slippery.

   

5. Jour 5 : Locronan, then a crêperie night in Quimper

   Perros-Guirec to Locronan, then Quimper

   • Environ 2.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Quimper
   Détail du jour 5

   Today we cross Brittany from the north coast to Finistère, about two hours on fast roads with a coffee stop. Our first stop is Locronan, a village built of grey granite on the wealth of the sail-cloth trade, with a square of 17th and 18th-century merchants' houses around its church that has barely changed in two centuries. We have a sit-down lunch in the village before the last twenty minutes to Quimper, our base for two nights. In the afternoon your guide walks you through the old town, where the Odet river runs between flower-hung footbridges, half-timbered houses lean over the lanes, and the twin spires of the Saint-Corentin cathedral rise over the rooftops. We also visit a Quimper faience workshop, where the painted pottery the town has made since the 17th century is still decorated by hand, if it is open on our date. In the evening we eat together at a crêperie: buckwheat galettes, sweet crêpes and Breton cider in a bowl.

   Compris

   • Locronan village with your guide
   • Sit-down lunch in Locronan
   • Walk through Quimper's old town and the Saint-Corentin cathedral with your guide
   • A Quimper faience workshop, where open on our date
   • Crêperie dinner with cider

   Option plus facile : Rest at the hotel after check-in and join the group again for the crêperie dinner.

   Option plus active : Climb the Mont Frugy, the wooded hill across the river, for the view over the cathedral before dinner.

   Temps libre : Late afternoon free in Quimper

   Activité : About 5 km on foot on cobbles and flat riverside paths. The faience workshop keeps its own hours; if it is closed, we visit the Musée de la Faïence or the Breton museum instead.

   

6. Jour 6 : The Crozon peninsula

   Quimper to the Ménez-Hom, Pointe de Pen-Hir and Camaret-sur-Mer, then Morgat and back

   • Environ 3 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Quimper
   Détail du jour 6

   A day out to the Crozon peninsula, the cross-shaped headland at the western end of Brittany inside the Armorique regional nature park. We stop first on the Ménez-Hom, a bare hill of heather and gorse at about 330 m, for the view over the Bay of Douarnenez and the whole peninsula. We reach the Pointe de Pen-Hir by mid-morning, before the coaches: sheer sandstone cliffs about 70 m high above the Atlantic, with the rock stacks of the Tas de Pois marching out to sea. From here your guide leads the coastal walk on the GR34 path towards Camaret, along the cliff top and down past the long beach of Veryac'h. Lunch is sit-down by the harbour in Camaret-sur-Mer, beside the little chapel and the Vauban tower. In the afternoon we drive round to the Pointe de Dinan and its rock arch and on to Morgat's sheltered bay for an ice cream, then back to Quimper, about 1 h 15. The evening is free.

   Compris

   • The Ménez-Hom viewpoint
   • Pointe de Pen-Hir and the Tas de Pois
   • Coastal walk on the GR34 with your guide
   • Sit-down lunch in Camaret-sur-Mer
   • The Pointe de Dinan and Morgat

   Option plus facile : Walk the short loop around the Pen-Hir headland, about 1.5 km, and ride the van to Camaret to meet the walkers.

   Option plus active : The full cliff walk from Pen-Hir to Camaret harbour, about 6 km with some climbs.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Quimper

   Activité : About 3 to 8 km on foot depending on the option you choose. The cliff tops have no fences and are exposed to wind; bring a warm layer and shoes with grip.

   

7. Jour 7 : Cider, the stones of Carnac and Vannes

   Quimper to a cider farm near Fouesnant, then Carnac and Vannes

   • Environ 2.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Vannes
   Détail du jour 7

   We start twenty minutes south of Quimper in the orchards around Fouesnant, where a family producer shows how Cornouaille cider is pressed and aged, and pours their cider, pommeau and apple juice to taste. Then it is about an hour and a quarter east to Carnac, for a sit-down lunch before the stones. Around 3,000 standing stones, set up in long rows more than 6,000 years ago, run for about four kilometres across the heath here, one of the largest groups of standing stones anywhere. The megaliths of Carnac and the Morbihan shore were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2025. We see the Ménec and Kermario rows with your guide and the Maison des Mégalithes, joining a guided visit inside the fenced areas where one runs on our date. Half an hour on is Vannes, a walled town on the Gulf of Morbihan, where we check in with time to rest before a farewell seafood dinner. The guided walk through Vannes waits for tomorrow morning, so today stays at three stops.

   Compris

   • Cider farm visit and tasting near Fouesnant
   • Sit-down lunch in Carnac
   • The Carnac alignments (Ménec and Kermario) and the Maison des Mégalithes with your guide
   • Farewell seafood dinner in Vannes

   Option plus facile : See the Ménec row from the visitor paths and the Maison des Mégalithes, and wait at the café while the others walk to Kermario.

   Option plus active : Walk the paths along the rows from Ménec to Kermario, about 4 km, while the van meets you at the far end.

   Temps libre : Late afternoon free in Vannes before dinner

   Activité : About 4 km on foot, on flat heath paths and cobbles. Access to the stones is fenced in the main season to protect them; the guided visits inside are run by the national monuments service and are confirmed when we confirm your dates.

   

8. Jour 8 : Vannes by TGV to Paris

   Vannes to Paris Montparnasse by TGV, then Charles de Gaulle or Orly airport

   • Environ 1 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner
   Détail du jour 8

   A last morning in Vannes. After breakfast your guide walks you through the old town: the gardens below the ramparts, the old wash-houses on the stream, the half-timbered lanes around the cathedral of Saint-Pierre, and the harbour at the end of the walls. If it is a market day, the stalls of fish, cheese and Breton butter cakes fill the squares. In the late morning we walk or ride the few minutes to the station and take the direct TGV to Paris Montparnasse, about two and a half to three hours across Brittany and the Loire country. Your guide travels with you to Paris. At Montparnasse a driver takes you on to Charles de Gaulle (CDG) or Orly (ORY), about an hour by road, or to a Paris hotel if you are staying on. Many guests add a few nights in Paris, or join our Normandy trip for the D-Day beaches; ask us when you book and we will quote the extra nights and connections.

   Compris

   • Walk through Vannes old town and the rampart gardens with your guide
   • TGV from Vannes to Paris Montparnasse
   • Transfer from Montparnasse to Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG), Orly (ORY) or a central Paris hotel

   Option plus facile : Walk only the rampart gardens, close to the hotel, and rest before the train.

   Option plus active : Walk the ramparts and out along the harbour to the start of the Gulf of Morbihan path before the train.

   Temps libre : Lunch on the train or in Paris is your own

   Activité : About 3 km on foot in Vannes. The drive figure for this day (about 1 h, 35 km) is the road transfer from Montparnasse to the airport; the TGV itself takes about 2.5 to 3 h and is not counted as driving. We reach Paris in the mid-afternoon. For an international flight the same day, book a departure after about 8 pm; otherwise stay a night in Paris and fly the next day.

   

Faune et météo : Brittany is mild and changeable: expect sun and showers in the same day from May to September, with highs mostly in the high teens to low twenties Celsius and cool, windy headlands. May and June bring sea pinks and gorse on the cliffs and the longest evenings; July and August are warmest and busiest at Mont-Saint-Michel and Saint-Malo; September is quieter. Gannets nest on the Sept-Îles off Perros-Guirec, and puffins are there in spring and early summer.

• Mont-Saint-Michel1 nuit
• Saint-Malo2 nuits
• Perros-Guirec1 nuit
• Quimper2 nuits
• Vannes1 nuit