An easy addition to your trip would be London on the Eurostar www.eurostar.com

Rome might be another.

For that time of year generally the countryside is not at its best and if there is snow or ice driving (best to have a car in the countryside) may make driving not that pleasant. Its best to stick to cities so you can duck into a museum etc if it is raining or snowing.

Another option would be a place like Strasbourg which may still have some xmas markets going. http://www.noel.strasbourg.eu/index.php?page=1&id_lang=2

Provence is not at its best in Dec/Jan and can get really cold with the Mistral.

3-4 days isnt much time when you consider it will eat up 0.5+ days to travel to get to and from the other destination.

You could fly into Paris and home from say London or Rome and that would save the cost/time in getting back to Paris.

Hope this helps!

Okay I will get the ball rolling. Many first time visitors like to stay in the either the Latin Quarter (Paris neighborhoods are numbered and the LQ is 5 &6) or the Marais the 4th) but these are also pretty "hyper" tourist areas. At your age and given where you live in NYC I would still suggest you consider the Marais-it is one of the"hip, artsy, gay" neighborhoods of the city. But you also might want to look further afield from the center of town. Some areas you might like could be Montparnasse, Montmartre, and the Canals area around the Bastille, which kind of strikes me like the East Village. You will get tons of advice about people's favorite neighborhoods, and if your bf has been there then he may be able to help you compare.

In terms of trips, if you are into food and love trains, if you really have 3-4 days then a trip to Lyon might fit the bill, especially in winter since there cuisine can be on the hearty side. If you want to rent a car then you might also consider the Burgundy area: http://www.beaune-tourism.com/

You could also just consider staying in Beaune if you don't want to bother with a car. It is a smallish place (without a car to visit other villages to eat) though so you might prefer a larger place like Lyon. Another thought is Bordeaux, which is a town that is much improved in terms of a place to visit in the last 10 years or so. The area is much more tourist savvy, and the city itself a lot cleaner and more pedestrian oriented.

Anyway, there are tons of other ideas with 3-4 days but for kind of a winter food/drink oriented trip, these are some that come to mind for me.

Have a great trip! And PS I am totally with you about B&Bs

Why don't you ask your boyfriend where he might like to go to add excitement to the trip? I suspect London might be a good call. I would forget rural destinations, southern France, etc. if you want him to get excited about things. It is the dead of winter, you know. How would you like to tour Iowa in mid-winter?

As for Paris, I also don't think you can ask others to tell you what to do if you want something personal. And if you don't speak French or know anything about the place, you cannot have an experience that is going to be authentic or non-touristy, just won't happen. You can't be authentic in Paris and not speak French IMO. But if you don't want to do typical tourist sites, just don't do them and spend your time walking around neighborhoods and doing nothing special, I guess.

like Jamikins mentioned London is a short ride away on the Eurostar. You told us that you are both used to the "big city" life so i'll throw Belgium in the mix for you. Brussels is linked to Paris via Thalys. From there you have options. Many people continue to charming Bruge. There's also the medieval city of Ghent. Leuven and Antwerp are also very gorgeous

^ sorry... meant to say "Bruges". and just FYI, there are far less English speakers there than in Paris

Probably rule #1 would be to lose the parents or you might have a "Midnight in Paris" experience with them.

Thanks for all the suggestions.
Asking the BF what he wants to do is tough because he is just not a traveler or planner. He will go along for the ride, but I definitely need to take the lead.
I think the comment about avoiding rural countryside in the winter is probably a good one. Plus the language barrier.
He is fluent is Spanish and I can get by on a little Italian, so now I'm considering that we take a short flight either of those. I was going to look into Seville, Rome or Bologna. Thoughts? Again, I have the seasonal concern.
Not really into London. I studied at Oxford once upon a time, and got my fill of London/England. I want a new adventure!

As often comes up here, since the weather will probably not be good anyway, you should consider a trip to some cities that don't care how bad the weather is: Strasbourg, Metz, Nancy, Lille, Bruges, Brussels -- all of them just short train rides away from Paris (but try to book low fares as soon as possible -- the www.voyages-sncf.com site shows you the cheapest days of the week if you click that option).

Don't count on flying south to get better weather at the end of December. You would not believe how often cities in the south of France, or in Italy or Spain, are buried in snow during the winter while northern Europe can be relatively mild. France has the Gulf Stream to keep the weather mild -- Italy and Spain do not have that protection.

ok. that makes sense. Can i keep picking your brain?
So which of the above mentioned cities do you like best for New Years time? We don't love crowds and prefer charm.

If your boyfriend hasn't been to Paris WITH you, he might see it differently with you. I find it a little difficult to believe that he is so jaded at 30 or has seen so much of the world/Paris that he couldn't dredge himself up to show YOU Paris.
I'd play it entirely by ear, and if you decide once you are there that a jaunt to one of those places would ALSO be fun, do it. Paris has enough ''charm''.

Been reading fodor's forums ALL DAY!! What a website. Im very overwhelmed, but learning a lot.
That said, I think I've narrowed it down to 2 options.

1) Paris from 26th - 31st, with an excursion to Bruges from the 1st - 5th (and fly out of there)

2) Paris from 26th - 30th. Then fly to Venice on the 31st, and stay through the 5th.

Is there a good website for cheap airfare for Paris - Venice and a cheap train for Paris to Bruges?

Feedback or suggestions welcome!

I don't think that anybody would want to stay in Bruges for more than 2 days.

You might find the weather in Rome to be better than Venice at that time of the year. And you can get direct flights to NYC - a bonus for many. And I agree, while Bruges is lovely (at least in the spring), a day or two is plenty.

I am kind of with kerouac-I think 2 days is plenty in Bruges. You could add Amsterdam on pretty easily by train-it is a nice winter destination with lots of snug coffee shops.

Two days in Bruges is more than enough. I'd second the suggestion of Brussels. If you love food, my experience is that their food is just as good as Paris, if not better. It's a fantastic city with lots of things to do, and if you're planning on flying anywhere, this is where you will fly into/out of in Belgium. Trains are easy to get though from Paris to Brussels on the high-speed Thalys trains. Maybe take a day trip to Bruges or Ghent, another small town that is filled with charm and is quite lovely.

Venice can be quite cold at that time of year. I've been before then, and it doesn't have the same type of charm under overcast and misty skies. And being that it's a city where you either travel around on foot or in a boat, you can't avoid being outside if you're moving about. I'm with Kerouac-- stay north!

Bon voyage!

Great article about Venice in the winter

http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/travel/28Venice.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

I hope that your boyfriend will find a way to be enthusiastic for YOU since it's your first trip. And, FYI my first and second trips to Paris were very different. I hope he won't have the " been there, done that" attitude.

Less touristy but interesting for us was St Denis, burial place of French kings. Just a longer ride on the Metro to get there but we really enjoyed it.

Drinks at Tour Montparnasse for great views of the city.

We got ice cream at Berthillon and ate it in the snow in the park behind Notre Dame!

Maybe a wine tasting at O Chateau, or a day trip to Reims to visit Champagne houses and the magnificent cathedral there (coronation place for most French kings).

The passages for shopping and exploring in cold or bad weather.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/mar/02/paris-hidden-passages-shopping-shops

We still enjoyed Promenade Plantee in winter.

Ste Chapelle is so gorgeous...yes, it's a tourist spot but I didn't get there until my 4th trip to Paris. Another way to see it is an evening concert....very small and intimate.

I really have to disagree with the '2 nights in Bruges' is enough. I spent 3 nights, site seeing al day long, and still didn't see every thing I wanted. And I was going at a much faster pace than I enjoy!

My wife & I have visited Paris on many occasions, starting in 1977. Those early trips were the typical 3-5 days in Paris at the end or start of a 3 week trip to Europe. When we retired early in '99 so we could travel more, we started to spend anywhere from 1 week to 3 weeks in Paris - renting apartments. These trips were anywhere from April to Sept, and we moved around in various locations - 7th, 15th, Marais, etc.

In '09 we decided to spend pre-Christmas in Paris. It was our best trip by far. Paris is totally different at Christmastime than it was any other time we had been there. We spent many lunches at famous brasseries around the city - La Fermette Marbeuf, Julien, Mollard, etc. We really enjoyed Galleries Lafayette & Printemps all lit up at night - and wonderful decorations inside the stores (in the early am) & fantastic window displays. The Champs Elysees had hundred of white Christmas booths that we enjoyed during the daytime & at night also.
http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/stududley-how-was-paris.cfm

Stu Dudley

Consider Amsterdam if you like museums (it will be cold, so all that relaxing hanging out by a canal will be minimal). There's buckets of art and history in Amsterdam.

I have lucked out with some fantastic weather in Rome during winter a couple of times. I live in San Francisco and it wasn't much, if any, colder than here. But that was just luck. Rome is buzzing any time of year.

Agree with Christina that "NON-touristy" will be difficult if you speak no French and are, in fact, tourists. Just go see what you think sounds interesting--do some reading--and don't worry about how touristy or "inauthentic" anything is.

I am contemplating Sevilla for this holiday season if I can get away from work. Haven't been since I was a child.

Ohhh...how could I forget. When I was in my early 30s I had a job where our vacation time did not roll over. We had to use it or lose it by the end of January. So one January I flew to Marseille, trained to Aix-en-Provence, spent a day and night there, trained to Carcassonne and spent two nights there, then trained to Arles for three nights. It was freaking cold and I got sick and I was solo, but I had a marvelous time!

So go where appeals. If you're open-minded and curious, you'll have a fab time.

I think you can approach non-touristy and authentic by perhaps renting an apartment. You aren't really affected by the tourist experience (no hotel staff, no fellow travellers) and get to shop for food (I find foreign supermarkets thrilling) and see what life as a local is like for a few days. The language barrier is not really an issue because mostly you can work out what foods are which with pictures and minimal language skills.You can still do the restaurant thing if you want to. Most apartments come pre-loaded with enough brochures and maps to see you right, and you should obviously do your own research beforehand about appropriate sites to visit.

If you click on Kerouac's name, he does some fantastic photo-reports in and around Paris (he's a local) and you might be able to follow in his footsteps for some non-typical but interesting experiences.

As for where to visit afterwards, if you are thinking about Bruges, fit in a day or two in Brussels and Ghent. It's all very close to Paris, accessible by train. (Thalys). Or northern France (Metz, Lille, even Nancy). Just bring an umbrella, the weather is often inclement in Belgium (museums are the answer).

Lavandula

If you've never set foot in Paris before, why on earth are you trying to find a "non-touristy" experience? Don't you want to see the Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, Sainte-Chapelle, etc.? You're going to go to Paris for the first time in your life and...do what, exactly? Wander around the périphérique seeing block apartments and the Stade de France? Why on earth won't your "experienced" boyfriend show you what everyone who heads to Paris for the first time wants to see?

I suggest Amsterdam for a few nights. Great trendy restaurants, English is spoken by most, canals are romantically beautiful, people are friendly, prices aren't bad, nice shops.

We stayed at the Hotel Residence le Coin for 5 nights, and loved it. You can take easy day-trips from Amsterdam to see windmills, gouda being made, a huge inland lake, small towns.

Forgot to say-- we took the train from Paris to Amsterdam.

Are you foregoing the main "touristy attractions" just for the boyfriend? People have gone to this city many times and her charms are always exciting.

You're getting ripped off here. Let's reiterate what St Cirq said, "Don't you want to see the Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, Sainte-Chapelle, etc.? You're going to go to Paris for the first time in your life and...do what, exactly? Wander around the périphérique seeing block apartments and the Stade de France?"

Your boyfriend should want to show you this exciting romantic city. Let him go to the pet cemetary, so while you're in Paris you can look for a new boyfriend.

That's a bit harsh. The BF has apparently been to Paris several times. He wants to see something new.

Your compromise sounds good-- spend days in Paris and see what you want to see, then go to another city you both will see for the first time.

It is possible to see the main sights and also discover new things in the same trip.

Okay PeaceOut, you're right it was a too flippant. Still Paris is a beautiful city and there are other things to see, yet not as grand as the major sites. Exploring the area around the Sacred Coeur was just as delightful as the site itself.


The OP should click on Kerouac's name and follow the suggestions there. My husband and I went to the Parc de la Villette while in Paris but we had a special interest. Yes, I enjoyed it but it was not stunning.

Still, not wanting to show someone you love a great city because you've been there before hardly sounds fair.

I think this is said of London but it’s applies and the woman should take heed.
“The man who is bored of Paris is bored with life.”

I have been to Paris over 15 times and I STILL want to see some of the "old" sights, and as someone pointed out, you can always see something new on the way. I thing BF needs an attitude adjustment --and take that with a big motherly smile!!

I would suggest Amsterdam. It's just under 3 hours by train from Paris. If language is a worry, English is spoken everywhere in the city. We were there on an overnight trip from Paris in February. The city was cold, but bright and we were able to walk everywhere and take the tram when necessary. You could stop in Bruges and then head to Amsterdam as well.

You have beemn invited to join your BFs parents in Paris. If you accept, you owe them some time in Paris, perhaps visiting some of the things they visit.

Then, off to another place as your BF wishes. That being the case, he should give a little input.

Geeze, I've been to Paris several times and always like to see one or two new things, but I still thrill to the sight of the Eiffel tour, still want to see Notre Dame, visit the Louvre and so many other places that are somewhat familiar.

When I travel with friends, one of the joys is showing them places I already love and seeing the look on their faces when they see something for the first time. It allows me to experience it anew.

I hope your BF can get into that mode and share your excitement rather than withholding that opportunity from you. Honestly, I personally think it would be quite sad (even a bit selfish IMHO) if he couldn't get a kick out of giving that to you.

You might consider Barcelona for your extra time. It will be cold, but it is an interesting city.

Since it doesn't look likely that the OP is coming back to this topic, poor girl. Hope she has a good time anyway.