Callicotraveller

We are travelling to Paris for the first time in July. We are only there for a very short time but really want to take a day tour to outside of Paris. We are especially interested in one that goes and spends some time in a real village. There are soooooo many tours and I'm overwhelmed. I saw one going to Provence but it was frightfully expensive. Any suggestions please?

Gretchen

You are there for a very short time. WHY WHY would you want to go outside for a village experience. And why would you not expect going to Provence, 3 hours by TGV to not be frighfully expensive.
Stay in Paris and enjoy the city of Light/the world.\
And by the way, Paris IS a real city, that within it, you can find a "village".

mamcalice

What do you mean by "a very short time"? If 4 days or less, stay in Paris. If 5 days or more, consider a day trip to someplace like Chartres - a small town not far from Paris with a beautiful cathedral. Others on this board can suggest other towns or villages convenient to Paris.

StCirq

What is your definition of "a real village?" There are a hundred small towns and villages you can easily get to on your own with a short train ride out of Paris. Why would you need some kind of tour to visit, e.g., Senlis, Chantilly, Auvers-sur-Oise, Fontainebleau, Ile des Impressionistes, and a hundred others?

Going all the way to Provence to see "a village" is nonsense if your time in Paris is really limited. Maybe even leaving the city at all is not a good idea. You can always visit Montmartre, which was originally a kind of village within the city of Paris.

TPaxe

You could go to Chateau Fontainbleau as this is about an hour or so from Paris, cute place and great chateau.

FrenchMystiqueTours

If you want to go to anyplace that requires a reservation for train tickets (such as Provence) you'll need to buy them 3 months in advance to get the cheapest ticket prices.

The cheapest train tickets are going to be the local trains near Paris that have fixed prices so you don't need to buy tickets in advance and you can also wait for the best weather day to do a day trip.

If it's a "village" that interests you then Auvers-sur-Oise, Senlis, Moret-sur-Loing and Crécy-la-Chapelle would be good places to consider. I put the word village in quotes because in France to be defined as a village means a population of under 2,000. That's not a precise, legal definition I gave. But I think what you're looking for is someplace not too big that is charming and has character and the places I mentioned fit that description.

Here is a brief list that summarizes many of the most popular day trips from Paris (within an hour and a half by train). Only two of these destinations (Reims and Roeun) require train ticket reservations to get cheap prices. The rest are all local trains with fixed prices. There are certainly many other day trips you could do but this list covers most of the biggies.

Provins (an authentic walled medieval town): http://www.provins.net/

Château of Chantilly (wonderful fairytale château, famous art collection): http://www.chateaudechantilly.com/fr/
http://www.chantilly-tourisme.com/

Senlis (small medieval town can be combined with a visit to Chantilly):
http://www.senlis-tourisme.fr/accueil-senlis.php

Reims (champagne tours, great historic cathedral, museums):
http://www.reims-tourisme.com/

Epernay (champagne tours): http://www.ot-epernay.fr/

Fontainebleau (former royal town with famous château):
http://www.musee-chateau-fontainebleau.fr/
http://www.fontainebleau-tourisme.com/
http://www.uk.fontainebleau-tourisme.com/

Versailles (obvious):
http://en.chateauversailles.fr/homepage
http://www.versailles-tourisme.com/en/accueil.html

Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte (the château after which Louis XIV based his garden renovations for Versailles and IMO one of the most elegant château in France):
http://www.vaux-le-vicomte.com/
http://www.vaux-le-vicomte.com/en/vi...aires_plan.php

Rouen (small city, lots to do, wonderful cathedral, medieval old center): http://www.rouentourisme.com/

Giverny (Monet's house and gardens):
http://fondation-monet.com/en/
http://giverny.org/giverny/
http://giverny.org/gardens/index.htm
http://www.vernon-visite.org/index.shtml

Chartres (the famous cathedral and wonderful old medieval town):
http://www.chartres-tourisme.com/en

http://www.discover-chartres.com/

Malcolm Miller Cathedral Tours:

Daily tours of Chartres Cathedral from Easter until late October are at 12 noon and 2.45 p.m. Not on Sundays, and during the winter occasionally or on request.
E-mail address is [email protected].

Compiègne (château with museums, wonderful old town. Can be combined with a visit to the château of Pierrefonds): http://www.compiegne-tourisme.fr/

Château of Pierrefonds (Magnificent fairytale looking château. Reconstructed in the 19th century but magnificent nonetheless. Can be combined with a visit to Compiègne):
http://www.pierrefonds.monuments-nationaux.fr/
http://pierrefonds-tourisme.net/ot/Bienvenue.html
http://www.compiegne-tourisme.fr/Le-...errefonds.html

Troyes (lovely small medieval city):
http://www.tourisme-troyes.com/

Laon (medieval hilltop town with a spectacular cathedral): http://www.tourisme-paysdelaon.com/

Crécy-la-Chapelle (small charming renowned artists village):
http://www.cc-payscrecois.fr/Crecy-la-Chapelle,203.html

Moret-sur-Loing (charming walled medieval village/artists village):
http://www.ville-moret-sur-loing.fr/rubrique.php?id=189
http://www.msl-tourisme.fr/index.php/francais/accueil

Auvers-sur-Oise (Van Gogh and other impressionist art history):
http://www.auvers-sur-oise.com/heading/heading899.html

Rueil-Malmaison (château of the Empress Josephine and a nice old downtown. On the RER A line and could be combined with a visit to Saint-Germain-en-Laye):
http://www.chateau-malmaison.fr/
http://www.rueil-tourisme.com/

Saint-Germain-en-Laye (former royal town with a wonderful château now home to the national museum of archaeology. On the RER A line and could be combined with a visit to Malmaison):
http://www.ot-saintgermainenlaye.fr/en/
http://www.saintgermainenlaye.fr/en/...ulture/musees/

Barbizon (famous artists village, can be combined with Fontainebleau):
http://www.barbizon-tourisme.fr/

These are the most popular day trips and all are worthwhile but there are many other less popular and equally worthy day trips. I could easily list a couple dozen more but only if what's on this list doesn't interest you. A good guide book for the Île-de-France region should give you more ideas.

You'll need to take a train from Paris to do these day trips. For info on trains in Paris and the nearby suburbs (métro and RER trains) use the website www.ratp.fr. Use the interactive map on this website to plan your trip: http://www.ratp.fr/plan-interactif/carteidf.php?lang=uk. Parts of this website are in French so you can use an English language companion site www.vianavigo.com. For trains that go a bit further out in the Île-de-France region use the website www.transilien.com. For trains that go further beyond the Île-de-France use the website www.voyages-sncf.com (in French only) or www.tgv-europe.com. A great website to learn about trains in France (and Europe) is www.seat61.com if you have any train questions/problems.

Paris and many of the places nearby in Île-de-France are divided into zones, numbered 1 through 5. Paris is in zone 1 and areas outside Paris are in zones 2 through 5. Some of the destinations I mentioned are in zone 5. For these journeys it will be more cost effective to buy a one day Mobilis pass for 15.65€ for zones 1 through 5. This will be cheaper than the point to point tickets round trip. Plus, this pass is good for unlimited travel on all public trains and buses for one day in zones 1-5. Buy it first thing in the morning before your first métro ride and it gets you to your train station, your round trip tickets, any buses you need to use at your destination and any traveling you'll do in Paris when you return. Before you use the ticket make sure to write your name and the date on the ticket. Don't forget to stick your ticket in the composting machine (ticket validation machine) before getting on your train. You can buy these passes from the ticket machines in métro/RER stations. Sometimes these machines have an English language option. If so, look for the one day Mobilis pass option. When you get to the screen that lists your zones to choose from press zone 1 and then press zone 5. You can also buy them at any ticket counter or stores that sell RATP tickets. They are good for 60 days so you can buy it in advance if you want to be prepared. It's not valid until you write your name and date on it and validate the ticket on your first métro/RER trip or at the train station.

Some of the day trips I mentioned will require a bus transfer once you arrive at the train station. If you choose one of these I can help you with bus info.

ira

Hi ct,

> interested in [a tour]that goes and spends some time in a real village ...<

"Tour" and "real" do not go together.

You will be in Paris a short time and you want to go somewhere else for a day? What put that idea in your head?

adrienne

You don't seem to want to be in Paris since you're only there for a short time and are already looking to leave before you get there. Why not choose another place in France and not visit Paris.

Christina

Provence is really too far for a day trip, I imagine if you saw a tour it was more than one day as I've never seen one for only one day (you could actually do it by train, at least to Avignon, but it would be a long day).

I think one of the cutest villages you can get to easily from Paris is Auvers-sur-Oise, right on the outskirts, a real village, and where Van Gogh is buried. That's the most village-y place I can think of close to Paris. Actually, Moret-sur-Loing is sort of village-y and I like it a lot, but most non-French tourists don't go there. Maybe that's why I like it, it's not too difficult to get to by Train.

Giverny where Monet lived is sort of a village -- at least Vernon where you arrive by train. I'll admit I don't find it that charming but I haven't spent a lot of time there, so who knows.

cigalechanta

Giverny is a good visit. Besides Monet's house is the museum of impressionists, and the Hotel Baudy where all the painters stayed to visit Monet. No longer a hotel but a quasi-museum
but a charing place to eat and visit the studio where they painted.

Venturasurfwidow

WOW. Callicotraveller, you have my empathy. I was going to post a similar question and my ego is glad that I didn't. I've used Fodor's Forums for years and years and have had wonderful, kind and enthusiastic advice for trips to Italy, Greece, Canada, Costa Rica and Indonesia, to name a few. Have never ever seen the snarky kind of remarks I am seeing on almost every post by a well-meaning tourist asking honest, well-meaning questions about Paris and France.

Thank you to the kind respondents above who answered the question and didn't editorialize. Ira, Gretchen and Adrienne seem to want to enforce the stereotype of the snooty and snotty French experience. Thankfully they represent a tiny minority of Fodorites worldwide......

StCirq

Ira, Gretchen, and Adrienne are all long-time Fodors posters who have volunteered their expertise for years unconditionally and absolutely don't "represent a tiny minority of Fodorites." They do tell it like it is - if you don't like it, that's not their problem, it's yours. And there is no "snooty and snotty French experience" unless you invite it. If you're ignorant about traveling in France and ask questions and get straightforward answers, why would you not be grateful for that? None of us is here to sugar-coat the realities of travel, in France or anywhere else. If you're so thin-skinned you can't accept honest answers to your travel questions (and no, they were not snarky, they were just honest), then figure it out on your own and good luck.

adrienne

Venturasurfwidow - I did answer the question. There are many towns in France and the OP didn't seem to be all that interested in Paris so why not have a different type of experience in France. I'm sorry you felt that my answer was "snooty and snotty" but it wasn't.

Your response was the one that was snarky.

Venturasurfwidow

As I said - I have traveled round the world - the "straightforward" responses above ridicule and belittle the desire of the OP for wanting to make the most of a limited visit. I stand by my statement that they are NOT representative of the majority of posters who encourage the, um, "ignorant" among us.

Michael

What do you expect to see in a real village?

mamcalice

Venturasurfwidow, do you have suggestions for the OP or do you prefer to join the thread to lecture those who do? The OP was quite vague in the request and has not returned to clarify so has probably not seen the guidance provided (snarky or otherwise).

Blaise22

I can get why the OP would want to visit a village. Paris is arguably my favorite large city in the world and I can't wait to go back again. However, every time I've been one of the highlights for me has been going on day trips to more provincial, quieter places. And I also agree with StCirq that it's ridiculous to get easily offended by the well meaning advice of Fodorites with a wealth of travel experience. I have only been a member for a year and I've found many of you Fodorites to be the most helpful and fascinating resource I have ever found in trip planning. Thanks to all!