valchoo

We are a family of 4 who would like to visit some nice places/villages outside of Paris in mid-Sep for 3 nights. We are not into wine or champagne but would be happy to make a trip to such areas if the town or village is quaint and easy to move around. We are prepared to rent a car if necessary though this will be the first time we will be driving in France. My only reservation is we do not understand a word of French and wondered if this will be a problem. I am hoping we can pick up a car from one of these places we will visit and return it before we take the train back to Paris.

Our first choice was Avignon/Provence but decided it may not be worth the hassle travelling so far out if we can only spend 3 nights there.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

PalenQ

It is only 2.5 hours or so to Avignon by train now and that is a great great base with so many neat things within a short distance from Avignon - Pont du Gard, Les Beaux - St-Remy - Arles, etc. and you could do all those by public transportation though a car would be better - check the French Railway's Car + Train plan where with a train ticket you can have a car waiting for you at many stations - drive it to another station or the same station return it and hop the train back to Paris.

Burgundy - Dijon to Beaune would be another great place IMO in September.

Or Normandy's D-day Beaches around Bayeux - a lovely base near them - can drive easily to Mont-Saint-Michel, the most visited place in France outside of Paris.

Or the Loire Valley - base in a sweet smaller town like Amboise and take mini-bus tours to the famous Chateaus of the Loire or drive.

Debbielynn

I second the Loire valley. I can't wait to go back.

Debbielynn

The driving in France is relatively easy if you are out of the city. Just make a copy of international road signs from the internet.

ira

Hi V,

In about 2 hr you can take the train from Paris to Avignon, Strasbourg, Bordeaux or Dijon.

You can rent a car and return it in your destination city.

Enjoy your visit

FrenchMystiqueTours

If budget is no issue then it's fine to take a TGV from Paris and get your car elsewhere. The less expensive option (considering you'd have to buy train tickets for 4 people) is to rent the car in Paris and drive from there. The regions closest to Paris that make the most sense are Normandy, Burgundy and the Loire. Depending on where you want to visit in any of these regions the drive is between 2-3 hours from Paris.

If you want to learn a bit about each of these regions you can look at the links below to see threads that will provide links to the major tourist office websites in each of these regions. Tourist office websites are one of the best travel resources for planning a vacation in France:

Loire:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-de-france.cfm

Burgundy:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...-Burgundy.html

Normandy:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic....html#39058384

TPAYT

My vote goes to The Loire Valley basing in Amboise.

We have gone south several times, but for only 3 nights I still suggest The Loire.

Taking the train to St. Pierre des Corps and renting a car there is easy. Driving is quite managable. We don't speak any French but had no trouble getting around, especially in the countryside. The most traffic will be getting out of St. Pierre but the route to Amboise is well marked and we did it very easily. IMO, don't train to Tours as that is a large city with much more traffic to deal with. Here's a trip advisor thread about going to St. Pierre.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...ey_Centre.html

Amboise has The Davinci house & garden to tour and has lots of restaurants. Driving to the chateaus is easy from Amboise. On our 1st trip there we were absolutely floored by Chambord and Chennenceau. If you only see those 2 it will be memorable but of course there are many more in the area.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...ance&FORM=IGRE

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...1-24&sp=-1&sk=

We enjoyed the Amboise area so much we returned on another trip and stayed in Chinon. My guess is with only 3 nights there, once will not be enough. Both of our trips were in Sept. It's a lovely time to visit.

valchoo

Hi All,
Thanks so much for all your kind suggestions. After tweaking our itinerary, we have decided to stay on for 1 more night in Paris and can therefore only spend 2 nights outside Paris now. We are thinking of doing Dijon and Lille before heading for Brussels or Brugge. Is this a good idea?

Given the current plan, can you please advise if a 5-day 2 months Benelux + France rail pass would work for us. We will use it for the following overland sectors:-
Day 1 - Paris to Dijon
Day 2 - Dijon to Lille
Day 3 - Lille to Brussels
Day 4 - Brussels to Brugge (day trip out of Brussels)
Day 5 - Brussels to Amsterdam

Am I right to assume that these rail passes are good for unlimited travel as long as we don't utilize it beyond 5 days in 2 months (example Brussels/Brugge/Brussels is considered as 1 day of use but I am effectively using it for 2trips within the 24hr period)?

For such rail passes, are seats always guaranteed on 1st class if we buy a first class pass and are changes permitted after a reservation is made with the pass?

Finally, for travel within Paris to Disneyland, Versailles & Fountainbleau, are there any special city pass we could buy? We will be in Paris for 6 days.

Thanks in advance.

StCirq

You don't want "passes" for those trips. You want cheap point-to-point-tickets bought 3 months in advance of your days of travel. Buy them at www.voyages-sncf.com and plug in Antartica as your place of residence in order not to be switched over to Rail Europe, which charges extra and doesn't show all the trains.

There is no special "pass" for travel to Disneyland, Versailles, and Fontainebleau. You take the RER (Ile de Paris commuter trains) and pay whatever the cost is for that ride (it's cheap, but more than riding the métro).

I liked your original plan much better. Your current one has you flitting hither and yon, spending at least as much time in transport as you have in each place you are headed to.

valchoo

Thanks TPAYT & StCirq. It looks like we'll need to relook our plan with your input.

Voyages-sncf sounds fabulous. We'll be leaving for UK on Sep 7 before proceeding to Paris mid Sep. but if these special fares are only good for 3 months advance booking, we might be a little late for it now. I will nevertheless check it out to see what we can grab. Thanks for pointing me to this useful site.

Enjoy your weekend.

PalenQ

I would not dismiss the Benelux-Franc Pass out of hand - compare prices with actual fares you can book and you may find the pass is a good deal - don't just take someone's word for it who may or may not have analyzed that pass and your train trip prices - pass valid in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands - the Benelux-France or maybe it's the France-Benelux Railpass - you have five long trips and this pass is a flexipass staring at five days of unlimited travel over a 2-month period - you chose the five days as you go along. You would have to pay 3 euros extra for most TRV trains in France but in Belgium you can just hop on any train anytime except Tahlys which you do not have to take though it would save you about an hour between Belgium and Amsterdam over the hourly IC trains the pass lets you jump on at will.
Not saying pass will save you money just not to dismiss out of hand as some would (Fodor's mnatra ;passes are always a bad deal' is not nearly always true!) without investigation.

valchoo

Thanks PalenQ. I agree it makes sense to compare the various fare options available based on our requirement before deciding on the most cost effective way to travel. I am certainly delighted to discover that another ticketing site like this exists for me to explore.

Thanks once again to everyone who has taken the trouble and time to respond to my questions.

Christina

Actually, there used to be special tickets, passes if you will, that included admission to Versailles with the RER transportation for a day, it was a very good deal. I think there might have been ones for other places (I have bought them to Auvers-sur-Oise), also. They were called "Forfaits Loisirs", but they haven't been sold for a few years now, unfortunately. So now the museum or Disneyland tickets are just completely separate deals from any transportation.