The D-Day beaches deserve a full day and a good guide: the scale of the operation, the terrain, and the cemeteries are best understood with context rather than a self-guided walk. Bayeux has the tapestry (genuinely extraordinary in person) and makes a good base for the beaches. Honfleur is the pretty port town that earns the detour. The Calvados countryside between these points — apple orchards, dairy farms, and cider producers — is the Normandy that most visitors drive through without stopping, which is a mistake.

The silhouette of Mont Saint-Michel rising from the tidal flats is one of France’s defining images, and the reality delivers. The trick is timing: arrive at low tide to walk the bay, and stay overnight so you have the island before and after the day-trip crowds. The abbey itself justifies the effort. The bay villages nearby — Cancale for oysters, Saint-Malo for rampart walks — make the area worth two nights rather than a rushed half-day.

Brittany resists the standard French travel template and that’s precisely the point. Saint-Malo’s granite ramparts and the tidal island of Grand Bé. Dinan, the most intact medieval town in the region. The Pink Granite Coast north of Lannion — an unusual geology that produces a shoreline unlike anywhere else in France. Concarneau, Quimper, and the Finistère coast for the western Celtic fringe. The seafood throughout is exceptional: oysters from the Belon, crêpes everywhere, and a cider culture that rivals Normandy’s.