My wife and I will be landing in Lyon at the end of June and we will be staying for 9 days. We have acces to a house and a car in St.Martin D'Uriage which is 15 minutes from Grenoble. We want to stay at the house a few days to save on hotel cost. Which of these locations do you recommend ? are we missing some others?

Geneva
Annecy
Avignon
Grenoble
Chamonix -Mont Blanc

We could also go to Italy , maybe Turin and we want to stay a few days in Lyon.

What would you do?

thank you so much

I suggest skipping Italy. If you spend 3 days near Grenoble and 3 days in Lyon, you only have 3 days left. Also, it takes time to travel between these places so you really only have about 2 days at each place. I'd split your time between Grenoble and Lyon, perhaps taking a day trip or two from those towns.

I would recommend driving the Route des Grandes Alpes - it is one of the world's most impressive mountain roads.

Your list contains only big cities - most of them are not in the mountains. If you want to experience the Alpes, stay in small mountain villages along the Route des Grandes Alpes.

http://www.grande-traversee-alpes.com/en.html
http://www.pays-du-guillestrois.com/

Hi G,

If you have a total of 9 days, you barely have enough time to visit Lyon and Grenoble.

Ech has a good suggestion, if you like steep mountain roads and rugged scenery.

I'll "third" the Route des Grandes Alpes. We drove it a few years ago, and had this itinerary:
Day 1 - Provence to Embrun with a loop through Barcelonnette
Day 2 - Embrun to briancon with explorations of the valleys, St Veran, etc.
Day 3 - Briancon to Bonneval sur Arc
Day 4 Bonneval to Chamonix/Mt Blanc
Day 5 Chamonix to Annecy. Stayed 2 nights in Annecy.

We did not find this pace to be too fast.

After Briancon, you could easily head over to Grenoble & stay 2-3 nights.

We stayed in a Gite on Lake Annecy for 2 weeks in '08, and we'll be in Embrun & Briancon for 1 week each this July.

Stu Dudley

PS - while in Annecy in '08, we spent some time in Geneva and did not like it at all. Spend your time exploring the Alps - and less time in the big cities. We have not visited Grenoble (will stay there 1 night this July), but we liked Chambery & Annecy.

The village of Chamonix was a "nothing" village for us. We've visited hundreds of towns & villages in France that were more interesting. Mt Blanc & the other mountains around Chamonix is the reason to visit that area.

Why are you going to Avignon?

Stu Dudley

first off thank you for the numerous responses.

The towns cited above were suggestions given to us by a friend who is the owner of the house that we have acces to near Grenoble.

I went to Avignon to see Pont Du Gard. If you are not interested in seeing Pont Du Gard, I suggest that you take Avignon off the list.

What about the palais des papes?

Palais des Papes is overrated in my humble opinion. There are more things to see in Europe than Palais des Papes.

Anyone have suggestions for some nice places to visit?