Day train trips from Paris
 

Staying in Paris for 10 days and would appreciate any suggestions or 2- 1 day train trips from the city. Something other than museums. Not wishing to rent a car for that day. A sister and niece group of 5. We leave Aug. 14th.

There are lots of options. Some of the most popular are:

Giverny - go to Monet's house and gardens.

Chartres - visit the cathedral and the town.

Versailles - visit the grounds, etc. if you are tired of museums. They are magnificent, particularly if you go on the weekend, when the fountains are turned on.

Rouen

if you go to Giverny, go early. The lines after the many trains arrive after 1 pm are long and tickets cannot be bought in advance to Monet's grounds, but can for the Museum of American Artists. We stayed over and went to Monet's at 9 am, had the place to ourselves for about 2 hours.
Versailles- leave time for the grounds because the interior will give you sensory overload.

Consider Dijon. From the tourist office (a short walk from the train station) there is an Owl Tour self-guided walking route that is easy to follow and, in 3-4 hours of strolling, gets you to a lot of sights throughout the downtown area. The TGV tain gets you there and back quite quickly. We did the trip in May and enjoyed it a lot.

You can take the train to Troyes - there's the cathedral, churches, half timber houses, market, and it's fun to just walk around.

And, in case you change your mind, it also has museums (and the modern art museum is excellent).

Or you can take the TGV to Angers and visit the chateau and cathedral (the cathedral in Troyes is better, IMHO) as well as gardens.

I also like Giverny, but the above posts are right about getting there when it opens or it will be extremely crowded.

One of my favorite cities for a day trip visit is Angers. It is 90 mins from Gare Montparnasse via the TGV. The Chateau d'Angers is 10 min walk from the Gare St. Laud station. See the Apocalypse Tapestries and walk along the pedestrian zone
along Place Ste. Croix..Just enough to do for a day trip.

Hi T,

Auxerre, a very nice old village on a river - 1:30 hr by train

Nancy, especially if you like Art Nouveau - 1:30 hr on the new high-speed TGV

Enjoy your visit.

((I))

I wouldn't go to Giverny unless all of you are fascinated by Monet and were planning to visit the Musee Marmottan in Paris anyway.

It sounds to me like you don't want cultural sightseeing.

I might go for this on an August day:

http://www.pariscanal.com/One-day-tr...-Seine-and-the

Hello
We did Dijon from Paris by train. We booked through snfc site and printed the tickets. it was pretty easy and had no problems on board. it's a short 1.5 hours ride. the town is very walkable and u can follow the owl trail. u also get to buy endless kinds of dijon mustard with so many tastes and flavors.

have a great time

Go to Reims. It´s lovely city with a very beautiful cathedral.
On June, 26th. we picked up the train TGV from Paris to Reims. In 45 minutes we were there. The train - the most modern and fastest (320 km./ hour)in France - is an experience. We had lunch at Chateau Les Crayeres, visited a Champagne house and the cathedral and at 5pm we´re back at Gare de l´Est, in Paris.

When I was in Paris, we took day trips to Chartres, Rheims, and Versailles. I'd recommend them all.

Chartres is a must if you love stained glass / medieval cathedrals.

Rheims for champagne, also a great cathedral.

Versailles if you want fancy furniture in historic rooms and fantastic gardens, esp. good on the weekend.

Bookmarking

Zeppole,

The boat canaltrip - What a wonderful idea.

I didnt know such a thing existed. Thank you .

The site says the trips run through November. I'll book while I'm there in late September.

My niece and her husband kept their hotel room in Paris and left their luggage in the room. They took just whatever they needed for overnight. They went to Mont St Michel and stayed overnight on the mont. They said it was the best thing they did on their week in Paris. It was so nice to be on the mont over night.

That would be a wonderful 2 days for all of you.

I recommend Giverny for Monet devotees, but for a person interested only in gardens, there are better options. The gardens are pretty, but not THAT extra ordinary.

As for Monet's paintings, Musee d'Orsay, Musee Marmottan, and the Orangerie,particularly for the Water Lillies, have much more to offer.

IF you go to Versaille, here's a suggestion for you. Visit the gardens first and then tour the chateau. The queues to get in during the morning are horrendous and the crush inside is awful!! By about 3pm most of the tours will have left. Wish we'd done it that way!! My second visit to Versaille was in June this year and we spent 5 hours in the gardens!

Senlis and Provins are two of my favorite villages located within an hour from Paris. Both are beautiful to walk, shop and grab a nice lunch.

Senlis requires a train + bus (easy though- the bus is right there at the Chantilly train station). You can actually combine a trip to Senis with a trip to Chantilly.

Provins is about a one hour train ride from Paris.

ZEPPOLE

I am intrigued by the canal trip which says it runs even into November.

Thanks for the info, but could you tell a bit more ?

I am undecided whether I will take the 1/2 day or the full day canal trip -

Do they have coffees, drinks, snacks on the boat (I know they stop 2 hours for lunch) or do you bring your own soda, coffee, water , snack ?

Another vote for Provins - I really enjoyed our day trip there - a very attractive town with plenty to amuse. A relaxing and enjoyable day.

Naxos

Mahya2,

I have not taken the boat trip to the link that I posted, but I agree it looks cool. That boat travels on the Seine River, not the canals. If you read that link, you can see that you are welcome to bring a picnic. There is also a restaurant on the destination island, and you can google up the name of it. I suspect it's a fairly fancy, pricey touristy place with not all that good food. So I would pack a picnic.

I offered it up to Tomie because at the end of August, it might be nice to just kick back and float down the Seine, epecially if hot weather makes it hard to tromp around in the sun, sightseeing.

For far less euros, one can of course simply take the Batobus, which travels up and down the Seine in central Paris, offering pretty views of everything from the Jardin de Plantes to the Eiffel Tower. (Get off anywhere for a riverside picnic.)

If you don't know where to go to catch the Batobus, you can do a google search. They have an easy to read webstie.

I have also taken the barge that travels down the Canals inside Paris (Canal St Martin) but I think the trip is boring, you can't get off anywhere interesting, and you'd be surrounded by concrete (including being underground part of the way) so you wouldn't necessarily catch a fresh breeze in August.

Have fun!