Places to stay outside of Paris

[ben5575]

I will be driving the family down to Brittany and thought it would be nice to visit Paris en route.

Not overly keen in driving/battling into the centre of paris and thought that we could stop somewhere nice for a couple of nights and train it into the city centre.

Ideally I'm looking for something on the west/south west. Doesn't need to large cosmopolitan, simple and french is nice, just needs to be near a station with a decent connection.

Any recommendations?

[Amateurish]

St Germain en Laye. I grew up near there. Nice town, lots of things to see, easy to get into Paris on the RER.