OK Fodorites, I had so much help on this board when I planned my Italy trip a few years back, that I am counting on you again. We (2 single women, keep that in mind for rooms with 2 beds) will arive at CDG on Oct 9. Planning to take Train to Nice that am, arriving in Nice @6pm. Should we shack up for the night in Nice, or rent a car and make the short trip to St. Paul-de-Vance? We are thinking of 4 nights in St. Paul-de-Vance,(poss hotels Villa st. Maxime or Toile Blance; still researching) and touring/ day trips from there? Good location or do you know one better?
After South, we will drive up toward Mt. St. Michel, probably stopping for at least one night, maybe 2? It seems like @ 12 hrs drive so 6& 6 is doable, but not necessary if there are great things to see in between. Any ideas on towns to stay on our drive up? and hotels in those towns.
Would like to stay one night on the Mont, (hotel recomendations? on the Mont or just outside?) then head to Normandy for 2 nights, or vice a versa. Then one night in Honfluer before we hit Paris for 4 nights. Will be staying on Ilse St. Luis, looking at Du Jeu de Paume as our hotel.
We like to just wander around enjoying the local flavor, a winery or 2, some art outside of Paris, but don't want to spend days in a museum. I'd rather see the view Monet had, I see his work in the states, great food and wine, and just enjoying our first trip to France.
We will have 14 nights and 14 full days. Thanks in advance for your help. I am still reading Ira's report and will get to Stu's provence details soon.

Maybe it's just me, but I think you are trying to cover too much ground going south and then north.. you will spend so much time in the car looking at highways. I would split it up with Paris and the north or Paris and the south.

There is so much beauty to see. As they say "stop and smell the roses".

Hi M,

It looks to me that you are spending a lot of time on the road for fairly short times in interesting places.

Have you considered visiting Normandy/Brittany in conjunction with Paris and saving the South for another visit?

Do you want to see how a winery operates or do you want to taste wine? Oct is well after the harvest.

Hope this helps.

Is there anything to do?

Well about half of france. Not sure which road you are going to take but
in October the harvest will be in and the cool weather coming. I might go up the route de soleil and visit Auxerre for a night. Two lovely churches, walled city and nice restaurants.

Alternatively you could visit Sancerre with the lovley view. We stay at the Unicorn but eat next door.

I think Honfleur is in Normandy. What do you want to do in Normany WWII visits or the Bayeux tapastry?

Thanks, We've been on winery tours in Napa, so just want to drive around, enjoy the view, maybe a tasting but do our wine enjoying in town when the car is safely parked In Normandy we want to do WWII sites and cemetary. Just FYI, when we did Italy we did 2 nights Bellagio, 2 nights Venice, 3 nights Florence, 1 night Assisi, 3 nights Sorrento and 4 Rome, it worked out perfect for us. We had a car, which we will in France. I was looking at a route that would pass through Clerment-Ferrand If we make the drive in 2 days that would be an area to stay, if we did in 2 nights we could stay around Saint Etienne and then around Tours. I don't mind a 400+ km drive in a day. We drive a 2 hrs, stop for lunch drive 2 more, no problem. Thanks

I think your plan is extremely poor.

1. You arrive, and take an all day train ride to Nice

2. Spend 3 days in the Cote d'Azur - with a tad of jet-lag perhaps.

3. Two full days of solid driving up north, with very little time to stop along the way. The freeways are fast, but there are limited exits and it seems that most of the neat stuff to see is quite a bit away from the exits. About 80% of that drive is not scenic. We spent 2 weeks in the Puy du Dome area close to Cleremont Ferrand a few years ago, and have spent months worth of time vacationing in the area that you are likely to drive through.

4. A couple of hours (4?) in MSM - then off to the D-day beaches for a couple of days. Then Honfleur in mid-October. Honfleur is farther north than any spot in the continental USA - so summer will be over by mid Oct & the weather may not be that great for exploring the coast & sitting at a cafe by the harbor.

I think that is a lot of time wasted spent traveling - and very little time "being there".

I think Nice & Normandy are not very good choices to try to see on the same trip, because they are at opposite ends of France. I liked your Italy itinerary much better than yours France itinerary.

If you simply HAD to see both areas:
1. I would arrive at CDG, rent a car, and start the trip in Honfleur.

2. Then D-Day beaches (which you can probably visit from Honfleur).

3. Next, get up early and drive to MSM & visit before the hords of day-trippers arrive.

4. Then off to Rennes, dump the car, & stay overnight in one of my favorite cities in France.

5. Next morning, catch the 9:10 TGV directly to Avignon in Provence & arrive at 2:45pm. Spend at least 1 night in Provence (I can't believe I'm recommending only 1 night in Provence).

6. Then drive to Nice & fly back to Paris from there.

If this was my trip, I would just spend my time in the Cote d'Azur & Provence in early/mid October - and end in Paris.

Stu Dudley

If I had months of vacation time, I might just do that. Unfortunatley $ and time are an issue. We don't really want to stay near the roadways, would prefer villages. We could do the beaches and Mont at beginning of trip and then down to Cote/Provence and head back to Paris via the train. We can skip Honfluer altogether. I am not trying to see all of France at once, but these are the places we would both like to see. I dont thnk 4 hours driving in one day is too much, even 6 would not bother me. I drove from LA to NJ in 3 1/2 days. I'm trying to balance nice places to see on our drive between MSM and Provence, not pick a spot and stay for a week. We again are 2 women, so don't need romantic stops etc.

I don't understand some of your thoughts.

You stated that the drive from Nice to MSM is 12 hrs - so with stops at toll booths, getting gas, rests, pottie breaks - I would budget 14 hours of time on the road.

You don't want to stay by the roadside - you want to visit & stay in villages - so add another couple of hours (perhaps 4) to the time on the road. That gets you to 18 hours - 9 each day.

If you visit 2-3 villages a day, add 1 hr for each village & that gets you up to 11-12 hours per day. So, if you depart at 8am, you will finish the day at 8PM.

I know the route you will take from Nice to MSM fairly well. It is not very scenic, like I stated, and goes through some areas in France where there is not much to do & see. If I had two days between Nice & MSM, I would spend 1 1/2 days in Provence and 1/2 day on the train (actually, more scenic from the train) - instead of 4-6 hrs visiting villages and 18 hours of road time.

Stu Dudley

Stu is right: take the train up from Provence rather than driving. You want to travel west, and if you look at a map of France you will see that the major roads run north and south in the central part. As a result, driving takes longer than you would expect, and there isn't a whole lot to see on the way. If you want villages, save them for Normandy and take the time to drive around in that picturesque region.

Ok, sorry if it was confusing. We are not looking to tour villages on the way, rather stay in them. Pick a village, drive to said village, wander around, have a meal, rinse and repeat the next day. By my calculations it is 1225 km or 765 miles total. Day 1 drive @400km, Day 2 drive @400km, Day 3 drive to MSM. i We could take a different route if it would be better. The train from Nice to Renne is almost 9 hrs. We could drop off one car and rent another. We don't need 2 days between if we could train it. I'll look into trains in that area. We could extend our stay in St Paul de Vance, I was told we could "tour" Provence from this area. That was another ?, is there a better town from which to tour Provence and Cote?

So - in 3 days you will have spent 15-20 hours in the car and visited 2 villages plus MSM. Not a productive use of time, IMO.

Like I stated earlier - if you start your trip in Normandy, it is a 5 1/2 hr train trip from Rennes to Provence - arriving in Avignon at 2:45 with plenty of the day left. You'll have perhaps 2 additional days vs. the "drive" itinerary - and you can visit about 10 villages in the Luberon & Alpilles - the areas surrounding Avignon (plus Avignon, Arles, St Remy). IMO, this is a "no brainer".

I would not advise you to visit Provence from St Paul - too far away. It is about a 2 1/2 hr all-freeway (almost) drive to Provence (each way). You leave St Paul after breakfast at 9, get to some city/town/village in Provence at 11:30, find a place to park, and hit the city at noon - just when the shops start to close for a 2 hour lunch.

Stu Dudley

I'd follow Stu's advice. That drive is a huge bore, and what you'll see along the way with two nights' stops won't justify it. And his advice about St-Paul-de-Vence is spot-on.

Or look into cheap flights from Provence to Normandy or the other way around. I'd totally forget the drive.

Ok, so arrive early Oct 9, fly to Nice
Day 1-3 St Paul du Vance(3 nights)
Day 4-6 Avignon (3 nights)
Day 7- train to Rennes, pick up another car, stay or go to MSM
Day 8 MSM
Day 9&10 Normandy
Day 11-14 Paris
Day 15 depart CDG

It's Vence, not Vance.

What do you mean by "Pick up another car?"

Your new itinerary is much better--no wasted time and still plenty of driving which you like.

Just to chuck in a few more ideas.

If you really want to drive back to the cold North, look into the A750 / A75 route which takes you over Gorges du Tarn on the Millau Bridge and is the most picturesque autoroute. It is also toll free (except for the bridge) as far as Clermont Ferrand.

If you want to maximise your time at each end, you could think of flying Marseille to Nantes with Ryanair.


Peter

I mean we will rent a car in Nice, return in Avignon, then rent another car in Rennes, return in Paris. Thanks for all your input.

Well, that's a lot more sensible.

Ok so now onto the nitty gritty. We only need to stay in the Avignon area, not that town specifically. Is there another town you would recommend? As long as its less than an hour to train, that would be good Should we do 2 nights MSM or stay in Rennes one night. What town for Normandy beaches? Again, would prefer the smaller towns, but not so small that they roll up the sidewalks. Looking at MSM and Normandy it doesn't appear to be that far apart, should we just pick a base and go from there? Maybe just one night MSM, could have early evening to full next day in the area. Would that be enough? We can always add a day to Paris, we may have loan of an apartment so those plans could be more fluid. Thanks in advance, I'm not asking for a complete trip plan, and I really appreciate the info, I just found it much easier planning the Italy trip. Thanks again

Don't have much time for a reply - but here are a few quick opinions:

Stay in St Remy near Avignon. It's only about 30 mins from the Avignon TGV station. If you want to stay in a smaller village - try Bonnieux in the Luberon. In October, restaurants will still be operating in the evenings - but in the smaller villages & St Remy - things will be "rolled up"

MSM is not more than a half day visit, IMO. We've been there a couple of times, and as soon as the place gets shoulder-to-shoulder crowded with people (about 11AM) - we depart. I would not want to stay there two nights. Stay in Rennes the day you arrive on the TGV. Plan about 4 hours for a visit. If you arrive in Rennes before about 2PM, I would see Rennes that afternoon, stay overnight, then head out very early for MSM the next morning, visit, then head to the D-Day Beaches area.

Stay in Bayeux to be close to the D-Day stuff. Visit the Tapistry in Bayeux.

I have a 27 page itinerary for Provence & the Cote d'Azur, and a smaller itinerary for Normandy & Brittany that has lots of "specifics" in them. I've sent them to well over 1,000 people on Fodors. E-mail me at [email protected] & I'll attach them to the reply e-mail

Stu Dudley