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I am going to France in next week for 11 full days (plus the days that I would be flying in and out of Paris). I want to get an overview of France with the intention of returning at a later date to the places I found interesting.
I would still like to spend at least 4 days in Paris. My mother has suggested Reims as an interesting place to visit since I recently turned 21 and could appreciate the Champagne. I traveling alone, and so am not interested in "college nightlife". I prefer to look at historical sites. I'm not a huge fan of museums, although I do plan to visit a few while in Paris.
I have looked at Mont St Michel and Reims as possible day trips from Paris. (I am trying to stay overnight in Paris most of the time since I can stay with a friend there.) Then I was thinking of going to the south of France and working my way north in a few days. I don't plan to spend more than one day in any city since I am there for such a short time. (I did this in Spain last year and had no problems.)
This was a sample itinerary I put together, but I was hoping someone might have suggestions as to how to improve it:
Wednesday: fly in to CDG
Thursday: Paris
Friday: Versailles
Saturday: Paris
Sunday: Paris
Monday: Mont St Michel
Tuesday: Paris
Wednesday: Arles
Thursday: Lyon
Friday: Colmar/Strasbourg
Saturday: Reims
Sunday: Paris
Monday: fly out of CDG
Overview of France in 2 weeks but leaving in one week!!!! HELP!
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I'd suggest you trim that a bit.
Paris to Mont St Michel in one day is a long day. How are you planning on going? Organized tour?
Arles/Lyon/Comar/Reims in 4 days???. That is a LOT of country to travel.
What are the transport logistics for these trips? How much travel time, how much 'being there' time? For example, how much time will you have in Lyon? It took me about 3 days to get a good sampling of the city.
I will be traveling by train. Mostly by TGV to cut down on time spent traveling. I was hoping to stay the night in a city and then take a train out by 8am. I figure I can always sleep on the train (I have a knack for that) if I need more sleep.
If you arrive in the city at nght and leave at 8 am - you have no time there at all (just dinner and bed -don't expect a lot of night life in these cities - they do not run 24/7 in general and restaurants will be shutting by 10 or 10:30 pm.
Sorry - but this trip is a disaster in the making.
I agree with Michel that you may be trying to see too many different sites in just a few days. If you were able to spend a few nights in hotels you could see more. For instance,
4-5 nights in Paris
1 Night in Brittany or Normanday to see Mt St Michel and the Normandy beaches.
1 Night in Strasbourg to see the city and the wine towns on the route to Colmar.
then 2-3 nights in Provence to see Arles, St. Remy, Aix, etc.
Have you looked at train schedules and the cost of train tickets on the tgv fir this short notice? You will be spending a lot of cash for barely any time sent actually seeing the sites. Pick 3 areas to see including Paris and make it worth the cash!!
A very costly in the making - because at this late date you'll likely be buying train tickets at full price - and one that you'll barely remember unless you're doing a thesis on train stations. You don't have enough time, really, to do an "overview" of even the small part of France you're trying to cover.
How do you plan to do le Mont-St-Michel in a day?
Arles isn't on a TGV line - how do you plan to get there, and why not just go to Avignon and do a daytrip or so from there? Colmar's not on a TGV line, either.
By the time you arrive at all of these places you won't have time for much of anything but dinner and sleep.
Needs a complete re-think, IMO.
I'm not sure about train connects, but why dont you
Wednesday: fly in to CDG
Thursday: Paris
Friday: Versailles
Saturday: Paris
Sunday: Paris
Monday: train to Strasbourg
Tuesday: Strasbourg
Wednesday: day trip to Colmar or other small village
Thursday: Strasbourg to Lyon
Friday: Lyon
Saturday: Lyon to Dijon
Sunday: Dijon to Paris
Monday: fly out of CDG
I know you didnt mention Dijon, but it works with direct trains and you can do the owl tour of town in an afternoon, try some wine in a lovely wine town and eat delicious food. Then take a direct train back to Paris - so you would see Paris, Alsace, Lyon and Burgundy.
You get the idea. You need to determine train schedules to ensure you have reasonable connections. This is just an idea. But I think you need to choose between Normandy and the area west of Paris and areas east of Paris.
Use this website to determine train schedules: http://www.infolignes.com/index.php
I might pick my last destination to have a direct TGV link to CDG, versus 'Paris'. That way, you walk off train and no need to metro/RER/taxi stuff.
I think going all the way south for one night doesn't make sense. And what's the deal with Reims, are you really interested in champagne or not? I think Reims is worth seeing for reasons completely unrelated to champagne, but if this is just your mother's idea because she likes champagne, I think your time is better spent spending another day in Strasbourg area or some place already on your itinerary (like Lyon or perhaps Avignon if you really go south).
It is much easier to get a TGV to Avignon, and some to Nimes, although there are actually TGVs to Arles, whether the part of the line that goes there is high speed or not, that wouldn't affect most of it. But there aren't that many (the only one I've seen scheduled is 11:27-15:22 on some days) and being in the middle of the day, it isn't an efficient use of time. Most times you'd have to transfer at Avignon or Marseille to get to Arles, which just adds on time, also. The one where you don't does stop in Avignon, it just saves you the trouble of transferring trains.
For Mont St Michel I was thinking of doing the following tour.
http://discoverbrittany.com/daytripcream.htm
I really want to go to Reims and Versailles. I am open to suggestions on all of the other destinations. I was jut trying to get a sampling of the different regions.
I have a rail pass, so the reservations on the TGV are not more than $11 to $25 per trip, so I am not worried about ticket price. I am open to staying in hotels outside of Paris as well as doing day trips from Paris. I am hoping to return in a few months. So this really is truly meant as an overview.
I personally wouldnt spend the time, effort and money just riding the rails, stopping for a few hours and sleeping just to do an overview of areas of France. Why not select a few areas as I suggested above and give yourself some time to actually enjoy the atmosphere, see a few sites and get the feel of the area. May as well take the time to enjoy the place if you are taking all the time to get there. TGV travels quite fast so its not like you can really sit and enjoy the scenery between places.
You know you will come back, so why not enjoy a few areas now at a slightly slower pace, and then enjoy a few other areas next time - rather than training around trying to do an overview where you wont see much other than trains?
As I suggested above - do a day trip from Paris to see Versailles. You could even do a day trip from Paris to see Reims. I would give Mont St Michel a miss and do Reims instead if you want - but would only pick 1 of the 2 and not short change Paris.
11 days? Stay in Paris. Take a day trip to Reims and one to
Versailles. Sometimes less is more.
<<I have a rail pass, so the reservations on the TGV are not more than $11 to $25 per trip, so I am not worried about ticket price.>>
Well, you must be quite a well-to-do college kid. I wonder how much you paid for the rail pass...that was probably a bad decision and a waste of $$$, even if you do intend to bounce around all over the country.
I know lots of college kids who have rail passes that are not well-to-do. It isn't a waste of money if you really want to do that kind of trip where you are on the train all the time. It is only a bad choice if you only intend to take a couple trips, and local trips that aren't expensive (TGVs can be). So if this kind of trip appeals to you, go for it. But I think Dijon and Avignon might be more logical places to go easily on the rail lines.
I would knock off Mont St Michel, it doesn't fit into your schedule very well and will take up a lot of time. And of course you should do Versailles as a day trip from Paris, which perhaps you meant, anyway (from your itinerary).