Our first summer holiday

We’d been together for around 8 months and had been on little city breaks in the meantime, but it was our week-long summer holiday that was super exciting and our first step travelling together. If you can survive a road trip, you can survive anything, right?

Transport

We actually started our trip in the south of the Netherlands, where Rob’s parents live! We flew from London to Dusseldorf and crossed the border to the family home. We spent the weekend with them before borrowing his mum’s car and heading down to France using the motorways, mainly. The journey took about six hours.

St Malo

Set on the English Channel aka ‘the emerald coast’ in Brittany, St Malo is a quaint seaside destination, with sandy beaches and a historic, gothic old town packed with restaurants, shops and bars. We stayed for three nights at a picturesque, beach-themed B&B Les Charmettes, and spent our time in St Malo exploring the nearby walks, swimming in the sea and taking in the town’s history. St Malo used to be a really important port town, and is also home to traces of Roman architecture. The nearby town of Dinard is also well worth a visit, as it feels less touristy and more local, with it’s secluded pockets of beach and old school french bakeries and stores.

Brittany was a great first step towards travelling together as a couple. We spent a few days relaxing, going for drinks and watching the sunset. With it’s greeny-blue sea, traditional creperie restaurants and coastal walks, it’s hard to believe that it’s not actually too far from the UK as it feels like a different world!

Mont Saint-Michel

As we made our way to Normandy from Brittany, we couldn’t resist a pit stop at Mont Saint-Michel, a tidal island famous for it’s gravity-defying Gothic-style Benedictine abbey, dating back to the unbelievable 11th century. The infamous sight of the majestic abbey from the mainland is enough to impress, but we also used their park and ride system to take us across the bridge so that we could experience the place close up. It’s hard to believe what you are seeing; a medieval town assembled around the abbey. Once a place of pilgrimage, it is now open to visitors wanting to explore the splendour of the abbey that the people of the Middle Ages regarded as a representation of the heavenly Jerusalem on earth, an image of Paradise. The Mount has been listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1979.

Normandy

As a history buff, Rob specifically wanted to stay a few days in Normandy to visit some of the important WWII D-Day landings sites. We stayed in a small town, Carentan, and toured the historical sites on Rob’s bucket list such as Utah beach, Sainte-Mère-Eglise, and the Normandy American Cemetery. It was an extremely moving part of our trip. On our last day in France we visited the really lovely seaside town of Arromanches-les-Bains, famous for being one of the most important beaches in the Normandy landings, as it’s where the allies established their artificial harbour to get supplies to the troops.

Lauren Loves

As this was our first long holiday together it was both exciting and nerve-racking (my first time staying with Rob’s parents!) In the end it was an interesting mix bag of family time, beach time and historical tourism. Personally, touring the Normandy WWII sites wouldn’t have been my first pick for a summer holiday, but it meant a lot to Rob and we had some really interesting conversations off of the back of it about what we learned at school about the history of our different native countries. We also learned that we could hack a road trip and it has led to many more!

Robert Loves

It turned out to be a good decision to go the St Malo first as it was furthest away from the Netherlands and it would mean we got the longest bit of the road trip behind us on the first day. Leaving early and Lauren sleeping through most of the trip meant we still had a good part of the day once we arrived in St Malo which we used to explore the beach and small town centre.

Mont Saint-Michel is definitely a sight to behold, it pays to go early as it gets very busy during the peak summer months. A little shuttle bus takes you to the island with only a limited amount of people are allowed in. If you are too late you might end up spending quite some time in the car park.

I’ve always been keen to visit the WW2 sites and their monuments, it being such a big and dark part of our history. What I found very interesting was that the Allied monuments are very grand and celebrate the victory whereas the La Cambe German military cemetery was very somber and reserved. It left a lasting impression.

Where did we stay?

Our beach front hotel in St Malo, Les Charmettes, was a homely, very welcoming place with great breakfast options and a stone’s throw from the beach. The best thing about it was sitting in the front bar area and looking out at the sea in the evenings. On the opposite of the spectrum was our hotel in Carentan, which was one of the weirdest hotel’s we’ve ever stayed at - if not the weirdest. The proprietor of the Hotel Restaurant L’escapade was straight-talking and seemed not to like her guests too much, the pillows were the width of a hair and the electricity suddenly cut out in the early evening as we watched TV. The restaurant itself was really rather good though, so, you know, every cloud!

What did we eat?

St Malo is famous for it’s creperies, both savory and sweet. We ate a lot of seaside food; fish, chips and burgers.

Top Tips

• Brittany is not known for it’s amazing weather, and we had some sun-filled days, some overcast and even one where it rained. Take a variety of clothing with you for all eventualities!
• If visiting Mont Saint-Michel, make sure you get there as early as possible as it gets very busy. We would also recommend eating before the visit as the restaurants, although super cute, are on the pricey side.
• Pre-plan your Normandy trip ahead of time, so you can maximise how much you can see as there are pockets of sites close to each other.
• Take plenty of music options and snacks on the road trip to keep you entertained!