Private Mont Saint-Michel, Honfleur Trip from Paris by Mercedes
Description
Private Full-day Trip to Mont Saint-Michel & Honfleur by Mercedes. Duration of 14 hours. Hotel Pick up & drop. Tiered pricing. Live guided starting from 4 participants. English Guided tour at Mont Saint-Michel Abbey by Abbey's guide. We make a one hour stop at famous Honfleur city with a short walking tour of the historical city center visiting the famous Old harbour and Sainte Catherine church, the biggest wooden church in France. 15 other day trips from Paris in Small-groups and as Private experiences by Clewel Travel.
Tour Options
Itinerary
07:30 We welcome you at Your hotel entrance door. The trip begins with our air-conditioned Mercedes. There are 190 km to drive on a highway from Paris to Honfleur. It takes 2,5 hours. After approx. 1,5 hours a short stop at a rest area for coffee break will be made. This tour is Live Guided during the whole trip starting with 4 participants.
10:00 Arrival in Honfleur. Honfleur walking tour with its famous old harbour. Honfleur - the main defensive port of Normandy of the XV century, transformed into a charming resort town with a picturesque Bay, much-loved by the artists of the XIX century. Honfleur was first mentioned in 1027, when it belonged to the Norman Duke Richard III. The owners of the city changed several times during The Hundred Years ' War. In the XV century, there were French pirates - corsairs who ravaged the English coast. A little later, in the XVII—XVIII centuries, the city became significantly rich in trade with the American colonies. After the port was closed, the city's economy declined and Honfleur became a suburb of Le Havre. Today it is one of the most known tourist cities in Normandy. The walking city tour takes about 1 hour. 11:00 Departure destination Mont Saint-Michel. It takes 2 hours 15 minutes (190 km).
13:15 - 17:15 Visit of the island and of the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel. As a rule we manage to join the Guided visit organised by the local Abbey's guides. Otherwise we provide audio-guides for the Abbey visit. On the top of the Island, you can admire panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean and bay. First settled by man in the year 709 it contains Medieval village & beautiful Abbey fortress dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel. The construction of the Benedictine Abbey started in the 700’s and continued through the 1200s. It remains practically the same since the Middle Ages as it was the goal of pilgrims from all over the world. Mont Saint Michel remains the most visited site in France. After the Abbey visit You'll have free time to enjoy Mont Saint-Michel city.
17:15 Departure from Mont Saint-Michel to Paris. The back ride will take about 4 hours. One stop at the rest area will be made.
21:30 Coming back to Paris. Drop off at Your hotel.
Highlights
What's included
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
Reviews(5)
Beautiful area. A must see when coming to France!! Our guide Eli was friendly, knowledgeable, and very charismatic. I would request her again for a tour from this company.
A mixed bag definitely. The scenery was beautiful and the driver and tour guide (not one mentioned on previous reviews) were early and ready for us. However, the whole day was stilted and somewhat awkward. When we arrived in Honfleur, our tour guide started into quite a long spiel about Paris. After a few minutes, we asked if we could walk and talk since we had quite limited time to see Honfleur. He was a bit rattled by the request, but did allow a bit of movement as he kept talking about Paris. It was somewhat interesting, but it seemed like that could have been covered on the ride there, so that we could talk about Honfleur while we were there. He tried to get us to ‘take a tour’ of a chocolate shop and then walk through a maritime museum with him during this Paris talk (which would have taken most of our Honfleur time it seemed) , though we had expressed our interest in seeing the buildings of and taking pictures of Honfleur. This continued to fluster him a bit, but he finally did seem to understand and agreed to meet us a bit later after our sightseeing of the town. Mont Saint Michel was equally as awkward as we tried to make sure that we were going to be able to see the sights we were there to see. The tour says that there are four hours in Mont Saint Michel, however that includes the line for the shuttle, the shuttle (both ways), and in fact, still wasn’t even four hours from drop off to pick up. We did see the Abbey, though there really wasn’t time to do much else (after eating), and it would have been nice to have known a bit more about the schedule before eating, as we would have chosen differently so we would have spent more time exploring rather than eating. In fact, more information about the schedule and eating would have been nice to have known from the get-go (things like lunch is no earlier than 2pm, and also there is no eating in the van). Anyway, we finished the abbey and thought we’d have some time on our own to explore (based on Viator reviews) when he asked what shops we wanted him to take us in because we just had a few minutes. We asked if we could then meet him at the pick up time (expecting it to be an hour - based on the info from the Viator site), but then realized we only had 20 minutes for the rest of the town, as the remaining 40 minutes were going to be used to get back through the shuttle to the car. The rides were relatively quiet (I mean it is four hours each way, so that is to be expected somewhat), but it just felt awkward. Also, minor things like our guide told us that the high tide at Mont Saint Michel is every night, and during the day it’s always low tide (which isn’t the way tides work) made me start questioning just how much of the things that he had told us were accurate. Our guide was plenty nice, and the driver was quiet but pleasant, and maybe there was just a mismatch in our styles, but for the price of the tour, I felt the whole experience was a letdown.
Ohhh... Easy story. We did our job according to the description. From the traveller's point of view Tour was OK but Price too high. Private Experiences by Mercedes with Guide and Driver are always more expensive as Big Bus Tours. You had a choice on Viator of different suggestions. "Our guide was plenty nice, and the driver was quiet but pleasant, and maybe there was just a mismatch in our styles" . So the trip was in general OK for the traveler but she "felt the whole experience was a letdown". Let it be. It can happen. C'est la vie. Greetings from "quiet but pleasant" Driver and "plenty nice" Guide.
Rusti was our tour guide and everything was exceptional! He picked us up directly from our hotel and we went off to Honfleur. He gave us a quick walking tour and allowed us to buy souvenirs. From there we went to Mont St. Michel. He took photos of us and gave us a good restaurant recommendation. Then we met him up after. He got us home in record time when we were finished. We loved everything about this private tour. Highly recommend!
Our one day tour to Honfleur and Etretat was one of the highlights of our 11 day stay in France. And the credit for this goes to Olga, our private guide. She was FANTASTIC. Again, this was one of our most enjoyable experiences of the entire trip. I would choose this company over and over again and I have been a travel consultant for over 20 years. Excellent day. Thank you, Olga! And thank you too, Cyrus. I so glad I found your company!
We had a wonderful experience with our driver/ guide Rusti. Despite the holiday traffic and very long day trip, he was very friendly and helpful. Rusti was right on time to pick us up in the morning. He drove us all through Honfleur before allowing us time to explore on our own. While driving he shared a lot of history about the port town as well as other facts about France cities and tourism. When we arrived at Mont Saint Michel he got us a map and gave us very good directions and recommendations. We rode the bus to the island, found a place for lunch, and explored until time to meet. Rusti guided us up the (hundreds of) steps with abbey tickets purchased in advance. He took many great photos of us and when the abbey tour was canceled he took us through the rooms and gave us a personal tour. The car was comfortable, bottled water provided, and rest stops along the way. Rusti was great and Clewel Travel is FANTASTIC! We loved all 3 tours we had.
