Tandem Bicycle Tours, Inc.

Normandy & Brittany

Norman Village

Breton Humor

Les Tournesols

Some Highlights of this Tour:

It’s almost impossible not to pair Brittany and Normandy on a guided bicycle tour due to their proximity. In Brittany, vibrant Celtic heritage comes alive in coastal villages adorned with colorful houses and winding cobblestone streets. Ancient megaliths, such as dolmens and menhirs, stand as silent witnesses to a legendary past. Indulge in Breton cuisine like savory crêpes and cider, while immersing yourself in the unique Breton language. Normandy figures largely into memory and imagination, from the D-Day beaches that played a pivotal role in World War II to the amazing Mont Saint-Michel, an abbey atop a rocky islet, along with the incredible 1000-year-old, 230-foot embroidery in Bayeux that chronicles the Battle of Hastings. You’ll bicycle through idyllic countryside, adorned with apple orchards and farming villages, and savor renowned Normandy cheeses. Meanwhile, cathedrals and towns bear witness to the area’s medieval legacy. There’s no better way to experience the rich blend of Breton and Norman culture, history, and landscapes than on your tandem bike.

• Visit incredible Mont St.-Michel, a UNESCO world heritage site.
• Cycle along the quaint Ille-et-Rance canal in Brittany as we head to Dinan, a magical village of half-timbered houses.
• Explore the WWII beaches of D-Day in Normandy.
• Wander the streets of St. Malo, a storybook village in France.
• Sip some Calvados, a specialty apple or pear brandy from the Normandy region.
• Sample the "Huître de Normandie" (Normandy oyster) considered to have superb and distinctive flavor by oyster lovers.
• Marvel at the Bayeux Tapestry the 1,000 year-old weaving that tells the story of the Norman Conquest.

September 2: Arrival Day
After arrival into Paris, we'll transport you west to Rennes, the capital of Brittany and starting point for our tour. Of course you might like to arrive early to spend time enjoying "La Ville Lumière" prior to our tour start. Rennes is a relaxed, bike-friendly city with deep historical roots, half‑timbered houses in the old center, a lively university population, and a strong Breton identity. Once we reach in Rennes we'll assemble bikes, have introductions and a short briefing, followed by a welcome drink and dinner together as we start this French adventure.
Lodging: Hotel Balthazar or similar

September 3, Rennes to Dinan
61 km - 373 m gain
Leaving Rennes, the road quickly trades city streets for green corridors and canal towpaths, following the quiet waters of the Ille‑et‑Rance Canal, once envisioned in the 18th century as a strategic inland route linking the Atlantic to the Channel. We pedal through a patchwork of market gardens, stone farmhouses, and lockkeepers’ cottages, passing hand‑operated locks that still hint at the bygone era of barges, cider, and salt moving slowly through Brittany. As the terrain begins to rise gently, church towers and slate roofs signal your approach to Dinan, one of Brittany’s best‑preserved medieval towns.
Lodging: Hôtel le d'Avaugour

September 4, Dinan, Loop ride around the Rance Estuary
55 km - 622 m gain
This morning's ride takes us north along the Rance River estuary to Saint-Suliac and back. Riding from village to village, you’ll see fishermen at work, and children at play. We’ll have a guided tour of Dinan today and explore its half-timbered homes, cobbled streets, ramparts and an attractive port on the Rance River, Dinan beckons visitors to shop its local craft boutiques, art galleries, workshops and cafés.
Lodging: Hôtel le d'Avaugour

September 5, Dinan to Saint-Brieuc
64 km - 644 m gain
Rolling out of Dinan, we leave behind its mighty ramparts and cobbled streets, once guarded by dukes of Brittany determined to keep their independence from France. The air turns decisively maritime as you approach the Bay of Saint‑Brieuc, where some of Europe’s highest tides have long dictated life for fishermen and shellfish harvesters. Our day ends in Saint‑Brieuc, closely tied to the sea and famed for its prized coquilles Saint‑Jacques, a fitting reward after a ride steeped in history and quiet Breton character.
Lodging: Novotel or Hotel Edgar

September 6, Saint-Brieuc, Loop Ride
42 km - 313 m gain
Leaving Saint‑Brieuc, the ride skirts the wide bay where medieval monks once reclaimed land from the sea, learning, like today’s fishermen, to live by the rhythm of Brittany’s famously powerful tides. Quiet roads lead through hedged farmland and small villages built of granite, a stone that has shaped both the Breton landscape and its reputation for endurance and understatement. You pass near former fishing hamlets where drying racks, low stone walls, and simple chapels hint at lives once centered on the sea and seasonal abundance.
Lodging: Novotel or Hotel Edgar

September 7, Saint-Brieuc to Sables‑d’Or‑les‑Pins
41 km - 448 m
Leaving Sit-Brieuc, we explore one of Brittany’s most distinctive stretches of coast, where sweeping beaches meet rugged headlands shaped by wind, tides, and time. The ride rolls past small coves and rocky points once used by fishermen and, in times past, smugglers who knew these waters far better than any naval patrol. We’ll catch repeated glimpses of the emerald‑colored water enroute. The day finishes at Sables‑d’Or‑les‑Pins, a seaside resort developed in the 1920s when rail travel and Art Deco optimism brought holidaymakers to Brittany’s north coast: its broad beach a striking contrast to the working shores you’ve seen so far.
Lodging: Hotel de Diane

September 8, Sables‑d’Or‑les‑Pins to Saint-Malo
63 km - 373 m From Sables‑d’Or‑les‑Pins, the ride follows a coast passing through Erquy and nearby fishing ports, places once known for privateers and coastal traders who supplied and occasionally outwitted the walled cities to the east. Quiet seaside roads reveal a rhythm shaped by tides and stone: granite villages, small harbors, and chapels offering thanks for safe returns from the Channel. As you continue, the landscape tightens and history thickens, with fortifications and lookouts recalling centuries of rivalry between Brittany, England, and France. Arrival in Saint‑Malo is unmistakable: massive ramparts rising from the sea, built to defend a city of shipowners, explorers, and famously independent corsairs. St. Malo is the setting for the novel, All the Light We Cannot See, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historical fiction novel of struggle and survival during the second world war.
Lodging: L'Hôtel France and Chateaubriand

September 9, Saint-Malo Loop Ride to Cancale
48 km - 387 m gain
Inland Brittany is a secret world of winding paths, walled villages, granite cottages and serene churches. Our first stop will be the Ferme marine where we will learn all about oyster farming. Pedal leisurely through this storybook countryside, or crank up your cadence to spend more time exploring the colorful port town of Cancale and its many culinary delights from the sea. Treat yourself to a lunch of oysters, langoustines, crabs, or clams as you watch the sailboats. Or perhaps you’ll head north to Pointe du Grouin, which marks the entrance into the Bay of Mont Saint Michel, before turning back toward Saint-Malo along rocky coastline and sandy beaches.
Lodging: L'Hôtel France and Chateaubriand

September 10, Saint-Malo to Pontorson
45 km - 158 m gain
Leaving the ramparts of Saint‑Malo, you quickly trade corsair towers for open salt marsh and wide skies, riding through land long shaped by the sea’s daily advance and retreat. Quiet roads follow the edge of the Bay of Mont Saint‑Michel, where medieval monks and farmers built dikes to reclaim fertile ground—an experiment that required constant negotiation with some of Europe’s strongest tides. Along the way, small villages and stone churches mark routes once used by pilgrims walking toward the abbey, drawn for centuries to what they believed was the western edge of the known world. The landscape feels deceptively calm, but local stories tell of quicksand, sudden fog by guides leading travelers cross the bay. Approaching Pontorson, you arrive in a market town that has long served as the logistical gateway to Mont Saint‑Michel, where carts, armies, and pilgrims alike paused before the final crossing.
Lodging: Hotel Victor Hugo

September 11, Pontorson to Villedieu‑les‑Poêles
60 km - 468 m gain
From Pontorson we ride to le Mont St-Michel. Perched dramatically on a rocky tidal island in Normandy, Mont Saint-Michel captures the imagination with its striking silhouette, winding medieval streets, and centuries-old abbey. After our visit, the ride heads inland through softly rolling farmland that has fed pilgrims and abbeys since the Middle Ages. You follow lanes that once linked monastic estates and market villages, passing stone farms where dairying and apple growing still define local life. Approaching Villedieu‑les‑Poêles, bells—not church bells, but copper ones—announce a town with a long tradition of metalworking, granted tax privileges by the Knights Hospitaller in the Middle Ages. For centuries, Villedieu’s foundries supplied cookware, church bells, and maritime fittings across Normandy, earning it the nickname la Cité du Cuivre.
Lodging: Hotel Le Fruitier

September 12, Villedieu‑les‑Poêles to Sainte-Marie-du-Mont
79 km - 510 m gain
From Villedieu‑les‑Poêles the route slips into a quieter, more rural Normandy, where hedgerows (bocage) and apple orchards shape both the landscape and local life. We'll ride along lanes once used by farmers and livestock traders, through a countryside that played an unnoticed but essential role in supplying Normandy’s towns—and armies—throughout history. Heading west, the land subtly flattens, hinting at your approach to the Cotentin peninsula, long considered remote and strategically important. Villages here bear the marks of wartime destruction and careful rebuilding, reminders that this peaceful terrain lay directly in the path of liberation in 1944. Approaching Sainte‑Mère‑Église, stories of D‑Day move from history books to lived geography: fields where paratroopers landed under fire and locals who hid, helped, and endured. The day ends beneath the famous church steeple, where one soldier famously caught on a spire—and where Normandy’s deep rural calm now coexists with one of the most powerful stories of the 20th‑century.
Lodging: Hotel Le Grand Hard, Domaine Utah Beach

September 13, Loop Ride to Utah Beach
55 km - 236 m gain
The landscape in Normandy is impressively diverse, and today’s ride gives us a little taste of everything. A warm-up on rolling hills and hedge-lined roads. Next, Normandy’s swampy plains and vast bocage grazing lands dotted with the happy livestock and burgeoning produce behind the region’s culinary specialties: Camembert cheese, brioche, calvados, cider, lamb, succulent chicken and duckling! Finally, the Landing site of Utah Beach, and the Nazi defensive Artillery bunkers of the Atlantic Wall. Stop in Sainte-Mère-Église and visit the Airborne Museum to learn about the Utah Beach landing, before heading back to our hotel.
Lodging: Hotel Le Grand Hard, Domaine Utah Beach

September 14, Sainte-Marie-du-Mont to Bayeux
85 km - 521 m gain Allied Forces invaded German-occupied France on June 6, 1944 on the beaches just east of Carentan, Today we’ll visit several sites and museums dedicated to honoring the memory of those who served. Regardless of your appreciation of military tactical history, chances are you’ll find yourself moved by witnessing the landing sites, the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, and by observing the German defenses still visible along the roadside. Free tours of the American Cemetery are available at 11 am and 2 pm, daily. The day’s ride ends in Bayeux, home to the famed Medieval tapestry commemorating the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. Legend has it that the tapestry was designed and woven in England by Reine Mathilde, William the Conquerer’s wife.
Lodging: Domaine de Bayeux

September 15, Bayeux Loop Ride
54 km - 418 m gain
The first stop on today's ride is a local producer of cider and calvados. After the visit you will taste some of their specialties. We then ride to Arromanches, where the allies built a temporary harbor to unload heavy equipment prior to conquering a deep water port. In the final part of the loop you’ll see the remaining of the impressive German defensive batteries in Longues. Save some time in the afternoon to view the incredible craftsmanship at the Musée de la Tapisserie in Bayeux.
Lodging: Domaine de Bayeux

September 16, Transfer to Paris
After packing up the bikes in the morning, we'll transport you back to Paris for the evening prior to flights home or other destinations the next morning.

September 17, Depart for Home or Other Destinations
Bon Voyage!

The description listed here is a very good approximation of this trip but hotels and routes may change marginally to improve the trip experience. We are now taking bookings for this tour. If you are interested in this tour, please Contact Us for more information or check out our info page to see what's included on a Tandem Bicycle Tour.

"The Brave" Sculpture, Omaha Beach

Bayeux Cathedral

Ille-et-Rance Canal