A drive through north-west France

RooFlyer · 2026-06-21T16:36:06+1000

stm1sydney said:
Looks great, we also loved Josselin, Rochefort and Vannes. First half of June - looks like a relatively small number of tourists thankfully (except at Mont St Michel)?

Exactly right. I think I’ve timed it pretty well. The lack of tourist is especially appreciated in parking situations.

Timed that well except we’re going to have another heat wave over the next week. 41° in Rouen for 2 days, where I’m heading today.

TheRealTMA said:
I hope you took time from sightseeing to have one of the famous Mont St Michel omelettes!

To be honest just anbout every eatery looked terribly touristy and not very appealing including the one I went to. There were a couple of up-market ones but I couldn’t be bothered fussing in them.

ellen10 · 2026-06-21T19:31:23+1000

Brings back lots of great memories of our stay on the Mont. Indeed a highlight!
When we were there it was king tide time, and amazing how fast it came in.
Thanks for sharing the photos and we did have one of the famous omelettes @TheRealTMA , delicious.

TheRealTMA · 2026-06-21T19:34:18+1000

RooFlyer said:
Exactly right. I think I’ve timed it pretty well. The lack of tourist is especially appreciated in parking situations.

Timed that well except we’re going to have another heat wave over the next week. 41° in Rouen for 2 days, where I’m heading today.

To be honest just anbout every eatery looked terribly touristy and not very appealing including the one I went to. There were a couple of up-market ones but I couldn’t be bothered fussing in them.

The whole place is a tourist trap, but the omelettes are real.

RooFlyer · 2026-06-22T05:08:52+1000

The guise at the Mont said that although the archives had been destroyed by a WW2 bomb, some ancient manuscripts remain and are on display at Avranches, nearby. So off I went - without checking and when I got there, it was closed.

However I discovered that Avranches paid an important role in WW2.

Operation Cobra was launched after some failures in the surrounding areas to break through the German lines.

By 31 July, XIX Corps had destroyed the last forces opposing the First Army, which emerged from the bocage and liberated Avranches. Reinforcements were moved west by Field Marshal Günther von Kluge and employed in various counterattacks, the largest of which, Unternehmen Lüttich (Operation Liège), was launched on 7 August between Mortain and Avranches. Although this led to the bloodiest phase of the battle, it was mounted by already exhausted and understrength units and was a costly failure. On 8 August, troops of the newly activated Third United States Army captured the city of Le Mans, formerly the German 7th Army headquarters. Operation Cobra transformed the high-intensity infantry combat of Normandy into rapid maneuver warfare and led to the creation of the Falaise pocket and the loss of the German strategic position in northwestern France.

Advancing southward along the coast, later that day, the U.S. VIII Corps seized the town of Avranches—described by historian Andrew Williams as "the gateway to Brittany and southern Normandy"—and by 31 July XIX Corps had thrown back the last German counterattacks after fierce fighting, inflicting heavy losses in men and tanks.[93] The U.S. advance was now relentless, and the First Army was finally free of the bocage.

The U.S. advance following Cobra was extraordinarily rapid. Between 1 and 4 August, seven divisions of Patton's Third Army had swept through Avranches and over the bridge at Pontaubault into Brittany.

General Patton is remembered in Patton Place in Avranches