2 weeks in France next May
 

We are planning a 2 week trip to France next May- planning on going to the French Open in Paris for a few days and then what?? 2 couples 55 years old, pretty active. One person has never been to Europe.
Should we drive around? Train,bike or barge to different parts? Any suggestions would be great!
Merci Beaucoup

for couples I'd rent a large car - that is if you want to explore France well away from Paris - like Porvence - stay around Arles or Avignon and there are a surfeit of awesome day trips to do - and maybe also do Burgundy - if into wine - there are loads of neat wineries to visit - Beaune would be a neat place to base there.

You may want to take the high-speed TGV train out of Paris say to Avignon-TGV station and pick up your rental car there - train takes under 3 hours going up to 190mph - driving would be a fatiguing several hour trip - then maybe do the Avignon/Arles area and putz up to Burgundy - ending in Dijon to return your rental car and blast back into Paris on TGVs.

For train info - www.voyages-sncf.com and www.capitainetrain.com are two sites on which you can get schedules and book at home - same trains same fares different booking engines. Book well in advance - weeks and your can get nifty discounted fares much cheaper than walk-up fares but those are train-specific and can't be changed nor refunded I believe but the savings for 4 folks would be immense - you would save a day or two car rental if you just stay in Avignon - a great city for a day or two - then pick up your car. Other sites with neat info on trains: www.seat61.com - great info on discounted tickets; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com.

Or head over to Normandy and do the D-Day beaches area and drive to Mont-Saint-Michel and loop thru the chateau-studded Loire Valley - again take a train from Paris to Caen - pick up rental car there and in the Loire end up at any main train station like Blois or St-Pierre-des-Corps to blast back to Paris car-free.

A few options

Take the train to Avignon (about two hours), pick two bases in Provence. Rent a car and explore. Castles, walled cities, beautiful landscape and scenery, fabulous food, markets, art, Roman aqua ducts and arenas, canoeing and hiking, cowboys and Flamingos in the Camargue and much, much more.

Take a train to Strasbourg. See Strasbourg Cathedral, river, and river walks, etc., then rent a car and visit the Alsace, visiting 1/2 dozen or so picturesque villages and tasting wine as you go. Great food! Beautiful scenery and good places for hiking.

Train from Paris to Belgium. Visit Bruges (lovely, charming old city with excellent food) and another place or two, then on to the Netherlands. Visit Amsterdam with day trips to one of two of the gorgeous towns nearby. If you do not already have tickets, fly multi-destination, into Paris, out of Amsterdam

Train from Paris to Belgium. Visit Bruges (lovely, charming old city with excellent food) and another place or two, then on to the Netherlands. Visit Amsterdam with day trips to one of two of the gorgeous towns nearby. If you do not already have tickets, fly multi-destination, into Paris, out of Amsterdam>

For this option go all by train - cars are useless in Bruges and Amsterdam and most Benelux cities. But in May I would go farther south - May in the Lowlands can be cool and rainy and windy.

Provence weather will be tops - even Strasbourg area can be cool and wet in May.

The OP requested suggestions for France. Amsterdam and Bruges are not in France.

lynnr - what are your interests?

beach scene
lots of castles
cathedrals
religious destinations
beautiful coastline
WWI & WWII sites
Caves with pre-historic drawings/paintings
beautiful countryside
wine
gorges
mountains
Roman ruins
large cities or small medieval villages
canoeing on rivers

Give us some clues!!!

"All of the above" won't help. Lots of castles in the Loire valley, but no beaches, pre-historic caves, or mountains.

Set some priorities

Stu Dudley

Very true, the OP said France, but sometimes there are interesting options people did not think about.

There are lots of places, events and experiences that were not even on my radar until a friend or someone on the Forum mentioned them. At least twice in recent years, I went to places described by another Fodorite, and those are now two of my very favorite travel experiences.

I think that on this occasion, with OP being so unspecific, that ideas about going to Benelux are great.
Let present them with some options and for them to decide.

But yes, basically : big cities = trains, scenery = car.

There are plenty of A+ places to visit in France in lynnr's 1 1/2 weeks outside of Paris. No need to get on a train & leave France.

Lynnr is a first-timer to Fodors, IMO, one of the things that drives first timers "away", is responses that don't address their questions.

Stu Dudley

>>OP being so unspecific<<

What is so unspecific about a "tag" of only France, and "We are planning a 2 week trip to France". She is just unspecific about what she wants to do in France.

Stu Dudley

I think it is pretty unspecific since the question can't even be answered by other people, only them. Should we bike around France? for example. You can't bike all around France, of course, and some people couldn't bike even if they wanted. For others, they would have zero interest in such a thing. So how can anyone answer that for a stranger? If one was interested in a bike tour, there are specific companies that do that.

Same for barges, how can one answer that? A lot of people would have zero interest in that (including me). And again, that is a tour company thing, you can't do iot yourself. And you can't barge all over France, you have to be only on certain rivers where they do that kind of thing.

Some people are city people and would mainly want to be in cities, in which case, why would you rent a car, it's a nuisance and expense. Some people might want to split the city and country, which I would think would be fairly popular -- Paris, then take the train to Provence and then maybe rent a car. YOu could do one week each, or maybe 5 days Paris, a couple days in Lyon on the way, then a week in Provence, something like that. There are hundreds of combinations of other places (like the Loire instead of Provence) with that idea.

The country is specific

The things they might want to do & see in that country are not.

Stu Dudley

If the French countryside interests you driving is the best option. Public transportation to various sights is not great in the provinces, this is especially true of the Dordogne, one of the primary areas for rural travel.

The Dordogne might be an option: good food, attractive villages, castles, caves, boating possibilities ...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...7624827253292/

So, Lynnr, hoping you have a chance soon to come back and let us know if any suggestions, questions, etc. are of any help yet.

What drives OP away is one guy telling all others he is the only one understanding the question.

Having different options is great choice.

Barge : I am not into it but read the canal du centre is appreciated.

Lynn. We need you to give indications lest we are left speculating and biting each other.

<i> I am not into it but read the canal du centre is appreciated. </i>

We did the canal de Bourgogne 20 years ago. Two boats for 12; it would have been too crowded had it rained. I was the organizer, and organized the trip on the amount of "old stones" close to the canal. The Canal de Bourgogne from Saint Florentin to Monbard was, in my mind, the best choice in that regard.

The pictures between the two maps are of that trip:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...7622755059630/

Many barges have bikes for use so you cn experience the French countryside from two wheels and rejoin the boat later. Barging may be something that sounds more dreamy than it is? Or maybe not - I've never been intrigued to do it at prices I've seen and you are obviously limited to a few popular canals but yes it could be great for some or many. I like the barge with bikes idea.

I forgot to say that we used self-drive boats. Bikes can be rented as extras, but with only two on the boat, it makes little sense to count on bicycle excursions. The trip we took (one week) required us to keep on going at a fairly steady pace (with stops for shopping, cooking and eating, and sightseeing) so that the bikes we rented were hardly used even though we had extra hands to keep the boats going.

I recommend that you consult a good guidebook or two (always a worthy investment, IME, but you can also check your local library). For inspiration and high quality photographs, you might want to start with Eyewitness or Insight or National Geographic Traveller. Then check Fodor's or Frommer's or the Michelin Green Guide for prioritizing your options. And then check the Rough Guide or Lonely Planet to get nitty gritty details.

You have lots of wonderful options -- enjoy!

If it were me, I'd pick a single (or at most two) region and focus. But that's how I roll.

Britanny, Gascony, Provence, Burgundy. Lots of lovely places. Pick one and we'll see what we can add. For sure, I would neither meander aimlessly or try to get round the whole hexagon

Lynn

Would be nice to come and comment/thank us for replying (even if some of the answers...).

People may do like me :
I may revert to my old self and never answer a thread by a first time poster...