Fans of the medieval will love Vitré  (on map).  It has an enormous fairytale castle, and architecture buffs will appreciate its high concentration of timber-framed houses with overhanging porches.  We arrived on a Monday, when shops are closed and the streets empty.  We had all the narrow alley ways to ourselves.  Had we not run across a kebab shop or cobblestone workers blasting the Euro-pop, we could have been in the 15th century.

Madame de Sévigné, beloved queen of French letters, lived here.