Avignon
 

I am planning a trip to Avignon in October. I will have two days at the beginning of my trip to spend in another city. I am coming from Washington, DC. Would it be easier to get to Avignon from Paris or Nice? Both cities have enough to offer for only the two days I will have there.
Thanks!

Driving Nice but then you have to get rid of the car(plenty of carparks outside the walls) unless you stay outside the town
Train not sure but probably Nice, check www.sncf.com

TGV from either takes just about the same amount of time. There are a couple of trains from Nice that take only 2 hrs and 54 minutes; the average seems to be 3 hrs 14 minutes.

From Paris CDG, the TGV from Gare de Lyon can take as little as 2 hours 40 minutes, and I'm seeing a lot of 3 hrs 51 minutes postings.

I love Paris, but one of the best things about Nice is that it's so small, you can cover a lot of ground in a short time. The local trains there allow you to hop over to other little scenic towns in a spit, too.

Both Gare de Lyon in Paris and Gare Centrale Thiers in Nice are easily accessed from their airports, so that's a wash. And for both, once you get from Avignon TGV you then must take a shuttle to Avignon town. Easy-peasy, though.

Good luck with your decision! At least with either one, you'll be happy.

Depending on your airline, you can get a nonstop to Paris from DC but not to Nice, which would make a difference to me. I hate flying and connections that take hours, however.

I would go to Paris to go to Avignon. The train is only 2h45.

Also remember that if you fly to Nice, you will most likely transfer at CDG, which almost certainly means you will miss your connecting flight.

The train from Nice to Avignon, while using fast-train rolling stock, is not really very fast because it rides on regular tracks, rather than TGV tracks, for the Nice-Marseilles section of the trip.

How about flying into CDG and then training it to another city -- perhaps Lyon -- before going to on Avignon? It's on the way and would let you see another part of France.

Have you been to Paris? If not, I would certainly go there rather than Nice or Lyon! Two days may not be enough for Paris but any time in Paris is better than any time almost anywhere else. And the logistics make more sense, too.