There are few holidays that offer as much variety and experiences as a car holiday. New cities and locations every other day and an opportunity to mix everything from castle to hut, mountain to sea and vineyard to beach. This year was the third year we crammed into the family car and headed out to Europe. This year, the whole family completely agreed on the destination and it was a road trip in France – from Alsace in the east to Brittany in the west. Also add Burgundy, the Loire Valley and Normandy and you have before you a 500-mile journey by car with family and dog.
The trip offered a cavalcade of highlights consisting of both new and old favorites and experiences. Here comes a selection of twenty best-biggest-or-worst!
1. Biggest surprise – The Vosges
On the border between Alsace and Brittany lies the mountain range The Vosges, with mountain peaks that reach up to 1500 meters above sea level. It is a verdant landscape with beautiful valleys, ski resorts, hiking trails and grazing cows. It feels very much like an untouched Alps, with very few tourists.
We drove across the mountain range and among other things hiked up to the highest peak Le Grand Ballon and the large radar facility. An incredibly beautiful area!
2. Most beautiful city – Dijon
We mainly went to Dijon to buy mustard of all kinds from any of the four remaining mustard producers, but we were greeted by a city that charmed us all. We stayed centrally in a hotel in an old monastery and had time to both visit Dijon's large food market, shop for truffles, eat at one of the many restaurants and buy an exorbitant number of different kinds of mustard. Dijon leaves you wanting more, I want to go back here for a weekend just to enjoy it.
3. Coolest castle – Chateau de Chambord
It does not matter if you have previously been to the castles of Versailles, Neuschwanstein or Pena Palace. Chateau de Chambord in the Loire Valley is the castle of all castles. With its 400 rooms, this is one of the world's largest boasting buildings ever. In total, it is said that the castle was only inhabited for 7 weeks, a completely unreasonably short time for a castle that cost a small country's fortune.
4. Sweetest village – Eguisheím
Alsace has some of Europe's most beautiful villages and the region has become a favorite with us. This year we lived in Eguisheim, which was a stroke of luck. The village is sweeter than sugar and the houses are built in circles around the center, a clever way of using the back of the residential buildings as protective walls. If you have not yet traveled along the Alsace wine route, it is a hot tip.
5. Best wine tasting – Domaine Borgnat
Just west of the region of Chablis in Burgundy is the wine castle Domaine Borgnat. The small castle and its wine cellar are from the 17th century and here you can both stay and dine. The wine tasting takes you down into the old underground passages and you get to try most of the farm's fine and affordable wines.
We lived out on the farm in our own medieval tower on three floors with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen. Extra exciting to live in a tower when the thunderstorm of the century breaks out, but that's a story of its own.
6. Best Wine Festival – Eguisheim
We managed to squeeze in a wine festival in Eguisheim, which was a really fun experience! For €9 you got a wine glass (which you got to keep) and then you just had to point to which wines you wanted to try from a folder with over 100 (!) different local wines. A perfect opportunity to try the different local grapes, find wineries that you want to visit and experience the difference between the different degrees of sweetness.
7. Largest tidal difference - Brittany
In previous years we have experienced Brittany's great differences in tides at Mont Saint-Michel, but this year we got to see the tide's impact on the villages up close. Rivers that flow backwards when the tide comes in and houses that are completely isolated on islands surrounded by water at high tide. If someone can explain why the sailboats don't tip during low tide (pictured below), I'm all ears!
8. Most tourists – Concarneau
Sure, I had read that the town of Concarneau would be a popular town to visit in southern Brittany, but I didn't think we would have to look for parking for 45 minutes and crowd the streets with so many tourists. It seems that only us Swedes have not yet discovered Brittany, the rest of Europe seems to be here already.
9. Coolest caves – Loire Valley troglodytes
The Loire Valley is full of impressive caves, which are a result of all the thousands of castles built in the area. The castle needed stone, which meant that the stone had to be cut out of the bedrock. From this, an underground world was created where people over the years have built their houses and stored their wine - so-called troglodytes. In Swedish, one of the translations of troglodytes is "cave people", but here in the Loire Valley it is so much more. The caves have enabled the storage of food, the cultivation of mushrooms and an even and cool temperature in the houses all year round. A way of living simply!
10. Most Poignant Contemporary History – The D-Day Beaches
We visited the D-Day beaches and war cemeteries in Normandy for the first time two years ago. This year we went back to see some of the places we didn't get to visit last time. Every time I am here, I am completely taken by this contemporary history that has shaped today's Europe and the world. An area that provokes thought and educates.
11. Most beautiful local festival – Fête Bretonne
By chance we managed to slip into the very popular and very local festival Fête Bretonne i Pouliguen in Brittany. Under large tents with long tables and benches, local dishes and wine were served. The clams were cooked on a conveyor belt in giant pans and the steam from the crepe irons hung thickly over the food stalls. A glass of wine/cider/beer cost €2 and a large plate of mussels for €5. In the bargain you got Breton folk music with Celtic tones of bagpipes and violins. Really fun!
12. Best local dish – Galettes with dry cider
I have a weakness for a really good galette/crêpe with a cup of local dry apple cider. Both Normandy and Brittany know their galettes (unsweetened "food crepes" with buckwheat flour) and crêpes (sweet with wheat flour). There's not much that beats a good galette with local cheeses and charcuterie, or a calvados flambéed crêpe with apple cider jelly and vanilla ice cream. Happiness on a plate!
13. Most beautiful accommodation – Château Golf des Sept Tours
There is probably nowhere in the world where it is so easy to find an affordable castle hotel to spend a night or two in as in the Loire Valley. We stayed at Château Golf des Sept Tours, a golf castle with an 18-hole course in the middle of the Loire countryside. Incredible surroundings and amazingly nice rooms, but strangely we were almost alone in the hotel. Not against us, it's not every day that we get to feel like lords of the castle.
14. Most beautiful castle garden – Château de Villandry
We found the most beautiful garden on this trip (and the most beautiful garden I have visited in a long time). Villandry Castle. 115 new plants are planted here every year, in addition to the perennials and trees that stand year after year. The garden is a splendor of color in symmetry, with many seats where you can sit down and enjoy the beauty. A place that impresses all visitors – regardless of the degree of gardening interest.
15. The craziest museum – Le Musée du Champignons
One place that required some persuasion from the family to visit was the mushroom museum Le Musée du Champignon. Here in a large cave in the Loire Valley, you'll learn all about mushrooms and mushroom cultivation and you'll even get to take home your own mushroom farm (if you're a child). Here you can get a feel for how a commercial mushroom farm works and see 250 different mushrooms being grown. I thought it was super interesting, but the interest varied in the family…
16. Most mysterious place – Carnac rocks in Brittany
Outside the town of Morbihan in Brittany is found The Carnac Stones - Europe's largest collection of building stones. The stones were erected 7000 years ago and the area around Carnac has more than 3000 erected stones. What is special about this place is that all the stones are arranged in mysterious straight lines over a large area. No one really knows which people built the place and no one knows why either, but the theories are many.
(A completely irrelevant fact in the context for those of you who have read the Asterix series: Obelix was a stone supplier)
17. Coziest seaside resort – Le Pouliguen
We stayed a few nights at the western end of the long beautiful beach The Baule in Brittany. La Baule is one of Europe's longest beaches and the 9 kilometers of fine-grained sand are lined with luxury villas and hotels. The nearest center for us was Pouliguen, a very cozy little town with many restaurants and a large port. Le Pouliguen is a very French seaside resort and 95% of all tourists are returning French looking for peace and quiet. Genuine and simply nice.
18. Most beautiful stop on the road – Hildesheim
No road trip in Europe without at least one stop in Germany! This year we stayed one night Hildesheim, a city on the UNESCO World Heritage List for its many beautiful half-timbered houses. A real gem that I would love to come back to again and again.
19. Most unexpected lunch companion – A goat
It is not often that you are disturbed by locals when visiting a restaurant, but this time a local resident was a bit too close. We had lunch in the Vosges at one ferme-auberge – a farm with accommodation and food. As we sit there peacefully eating our lunch in the sun, a goat comes up to the table. Slowly, slowly, it creeps up to the table and almost manages to grab a slice of bread from a plate before Anders manages to get hold of the horns and can lead it away. A lesson learned is not to muck with goats – they are quite stubborn animals with big horns!
20. Best repeat favorite – Honfleur
We ended our France trip this time with a few nights in one of our favorite towns in Normandy. Honfleur is always nice and the restaurant selection here is incredibly good. A few pans of clams and a few plates of oysters might have been enjoyed here along with some of the area's incredible cheeses. A perfect end to a really good road trip in France!
What fantastic places you visited! So inspiring! Especially Eguisheim looks incredibly cute.
You would love Eguisheim - a place where you can't stop taking pictures because everything is just sooo cute :)
No, but WOW! Thank you so much for this post, so much inspiration. Hadn't even heard of probably half of the places you visited, so got a lot of places to put on the bucket list. All I want now is to check out French castles and eat crêpes, haha!