Saint-Malo

Saint-Malo is the rare French break a UK traveller can reach without flying: an overnight Brittany Ferries crossing from Portsmouth drops you about a fifteen-minute walk from the granite walls of the old corsair town, which means you can do the whole trip car-free if you want to. The appeal is concentrated and obvious once you arrive — a walled Intra-Muros of cobbled lanes and ramparts you can walk a full lap of for free, a long crescent beach called the Sillon just outside the gates, and an estuary mouth that produces some of the biggest tides in Europe. Bear in mind most of the old town was rebuilt after heavy damage in 1944, so it reads as a handsome, faithful reconstruction rather than untouched medieval stone.

The single planning habit that separates a good trip from a frustrating one here is reading the tide table. With a range that can reach around fourteen metres, the tide decides when you can walk across the sand to Chateaubriand’s tomb on the Ile du Grand Be, when the Sillon beach is even there, and when a big spring tide sends spray arcing over the sea wall. Where you sleep is the other call: pick Intra-Muros for atmosphere and everything on foot, or the Sillon seafront for a bigger room, a sea view and quieter nights.

Two to three nights covers the town comfortably. Add a night if you want the easy wins nearby — the ten-minute Bus de Mer ferry across the Rance to belle-epoque Dinard, oysters at Cancale, a Dinan day out, or the direct coach to Mont-Saint-Michel that makes hiring a car unnecessary just for the headline day trip. The structured planning below — how to arrive, where to stay, timing the tides and a realistic budget in pounds — picks up from here.