sugarmaple

I need some help, I've become paralyzed by the choices!

By way of background, last year we had three glorious weeks starting in Toulouse and winding our way through Carcassone, Figeac, Albi, Rocamadour and ending with a week in Sarlat before going to Paris.

We loved driving the Cele and Lot valley, the honey coloured houses with blue gray shutters, mist rising from the valleys in the morning, the view from castlenaud down the river valley, walnut groves, Peche merle, our apartment in Sarlat, boat trip on the Dordogne, beautiful and charming villages, and lagavullin and macallan at a ridiculous price at the Casino in Sarlat!

We thought this year we might do Provence, but airfare is about $300 more per person than Paris, Madrid or Edinburgh, so we've eliminated that. Also eliminated Scotland because of the strong £, so our distillery tour will have to wait for another year.

We'll have a maximum of three weeks in September or October. We've been back and forth between Normandy and Brittany and Madrid and northern Spain. John is willing to drive, but not along cliff edges.

To complicate things, we're open to just about anything.

Any thoughts to help me decide would be most gratefully appreciated.

Michael

Don't rule out the Provence. You can take the TGV from Paris with low-priced tickets purchased three months in advance; but non refundable or exchangeable unless you purchase insurance.

La Rochelle and its back country, either inland or on the coast (the Ile de Ré) might be a good addition to the Dordogne. Instead of a Scotch tour, you might want to visit the Cognac producers of the area.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...845839973/show

PalenQ

We thought this year we might do Provence, but airfare is about $300 more per person than Paris, Madrid or Edinburgh, so we've eliminated that.>

You mean flying to Provence - why not fly to Paris then hop
TGV trains with discounted tickets say as low at $50 a piece and end up back near Paris.

Provence to me is the highlight for many of southern France or France as a whole, from a driving and old-world type city angle - Arles, Avignon, Nimes are all wonderful cities - the Pont du Gard, Uzes another neat city, Les Baux-de-Provence - St-Remy-de-Porvence, the Camargue - wind your way back to Paris via

Burgudny and the Burgundy Wine Road - Beaune makes a neat base - Vezelay - a very neat old pilgrimage site with awesome basilica that once house holy relics that when exposed as fakes caused Vezelay to slumbner away - when uncovered in the 1800s you have a ristine medieval town and a huge basilica that once was one of the most thriving pilgrimmage places in Europe.

Could go Burgundy - Vezelay - Loire Valley to Paris or a place like Tours - dump the car and take the train into Paris, where cars are useless and driving can be tough.

aliced

If Provence is your first choice, why not TGV from Paris-Avignon? Lots to explore from there. Perhaps head east over to the Riviera. Driving the upper corniche is not a white-knuckle endeavor. Or drive south from Aix into Spain exploring Barcelona. It's a long way over to San Sebastian, and Madrid was not as appealing a destination for us. Seems Sept-Oct ideal time for Provence.

sugarmaple

Thanks for the replies. Just to clarify, we were considering either/or, not both france and Spain.

I had a look at the TVG, Paris to Avignon, I looked at three months out, and prices are around €200 each way, give or take, that's for two. Am I doing something wrong?

FrenchMystiqueTours

What website are you using to check train ticket prices and schedules? If it's RailEurope then avoid that site. Use www.capitainetrain.com. If you mean you are searching three months out from today then prices could be higher than usual as it is summer vacation season and PREM tickets may be sold out depending on the date you selected. You won't have this problem in September or October and you should know that for some popular TGV routes, such as Paris to Avignon, tickets can be released 4 or more months in advance. In either of those months you should have no problem getting a one way ticket for around 30€ and possibly less for iDTGV tickets. I would start looking again in about a month and check each day. I know you can sign up for a program with SNCF to get alerts on ticket releases but I haven't looked into the name of this option.

sugarmaple

I had a look at the man in seat 61, apparently inexpensive fares are sometimes missing from Canada, maybe that's it. I looked at SNCF, capitaine, and raileurope, and all were in the same ballpark.

sugarmaple

What is iDTVG. I'll look into the alerts, and see if I can find it. Thanks.

FrenchMystiqueTours

I couldn't explain what iDTGV is as well as some of the sites below but I just think of it as a budget TGV service and I believe tickets go on sale 6 months in advance, often with prices lower than PREM fares:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic..._Provence.html

http://www.idtgv.com/en/who-are-we

http://www.idtgv.com/en/frequently-a...s#question-753

http://www.sncf.com/en/trains/idtgv

FrenchMystiqueTours

For ticket alert info I believe you want to sign up with SNCF for Alerte Résa:

http://www.voyages-sncf.com/services...te-reservation