Day trip out of Paris
 

Looking for suggestions for a day trip out of Paris. We are considering Fountainbleu, Mont St. Michel plus Dinan and St. Malo(on the TGV), or possibly a tour of the Champagne region with wine tasting and cellar tours.

I would love opinions on these, or other suggestions.

I have not done MSM but know it is logistically quite time-consuming for a day trip. The TGV doesn't go there, but nearby to Rennes, and you must then take a bus and there are limited schedules for both.

Reims is a lovely day trip and you can do champagne cellar tours right there in the city, as well as see so many other things (museums, cathedral, etc). I recommend that highly and it is a simply train trip of about 2 hrs one way. I don't know about wine tasting, however, as you'd have to go in the countryside for that and get into renting a car, I suppose. That seems like a bit much for a day trip.

Fontainebleau is a great idea -- a lovely chateau and gardens and an easy train trip (short bus trip from train station, but easy).

There are many others and this is a very frequent question on this board so there are many threads on them, many quite recent. Some of my other favorites are Rouen, Auvers-sur-Oise, Giverny, Chantilly and Lyon. Of course other usual suspects are Versailles and Chartres, and I found very close suburbs St-Germain-en-Laye and St-Denis both worthwhile visits. You could even see a few chateaux if you want.

There have been a number of posts on this very topic the past month. I was going to paste the links here but it seems it would 'widen' the thread list into that irritating format - if you've seen it before you'll know what I mean.

Anyway, if you type in 'day trip' and select France and the find button, you can see a number of posts about day trips to various locations outside Paris, by TGV, or with chateau etc..

I recommend a trip to Chartres. It is 45 min train ride from Paris. The cathedral is a must see. And the town itself is very charming. Very good shopping there as well.

Versailles is another option that's easily doable on your own. I've also done London as a day trip via Eurostar with Paris Vision Tours.

last May my daughter and I had a delightful day trip to Giverny. The train is easy and a bus is waiting right at the train station to take you directly to Giverny. Monet's gardens were spectacular despite the crowds. Don't miss the American museum a short walk down the road - a lovely small collection of American impresssionists.

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