Will be 6 nights in Paris last week of Sept. Any special daytrips that we should consider?

Giverny, Versailles, Chartres, Fontainebleau, Reims or Brussels all can be done with public transportation; you can even do a day trip to London via the Eurostar. The D-Day beaches can be done with a bus tour through Cityrama or ParisVision, or a train to Bayeux and picking up a guided tour there (the beaches are not on direct train route).

I'd recommend Auvers-sur-Oise if you are interested in Van Gogh at all. Beautiful village, easy to get to on the RER from Paris, and you can visit the hotel where he lived, the church he painted while under the care of Docteur Gachet, a fascinating multi-media show about Impressionism at the château, and his and his brother Theo's gravestones. Alternatively, all the places Elvira mentioned are worthwhile, as are Chantilly and Senlis and Compiègne.

lucy, <BR> <BR>the previous two posters are much more knowledgeable about France (and probably a lot of other things as well) than I. But I will say that my wife & I visited Paris about a month ago, and we loved our daytrip to Champagne. We took a ParisVision tour (minibus with 6 passengers total). The region was beautiful, we followed the Marne River and went through several small villages. We of course visited two caves (one a small outfit, Pannier, and the other a giant, Mercier)--and we found the history of the region fascinating. It was a little like Mecca for my wife, who loves champagne. We also stopped at the wonderful memorial to US soldiers who died in WWI in the region. We got a private tour of a small castle. And we had a fantastic lunch with wine, and champagne of course. <BR> <BR>Probably the best feature of the tour was the guide/driver, Frederick. He was witty, fun, and gave us some insight into French culture. <BR> <BR>Have a great time!

How about London? Its only about £50 return for a day trip and can be done easily in a day!

I enjoyed visiting Fontainebleau and Vaux-le-Vicomte. Fonatainebleau is rich in the history of France. Vaux-le-Vicomte is, too, in a different sort of way. In terms of being a great example of the almost perfect blending of architectural design, engineering, landscaping, and interior decorating and artistic painting, I thought it to be a very rewarding few hours. The three men who were the designers, land scapers, and artists were later "asked" by Louis XIV to create Versailles. <BR>I enjoyed visiting Vaux as much as I did Versailles, perhaps more because I did not have that feeling of claustrophobia caused by the crush of people swarming through the chambers.

Does anybody know or have any recommendations about day bus tours to Louare (sp?) valley?

ParisVision offers a day trip Paris to the Loire Valley castles. www.parisvision.com

The Loire Valley was my favorite daytrip from Paris & I enjoyed that so much I would do it again. I have also been to Versailles, Giverny, & Chartres, & enjoyed all of them. London deserves more than a daytrip in my opinion. Fontainebleau is on my list for next time.

I've enjoyed train trips to all of the following: Versailles, Fontainebleau,Chantilly,Giverny,Rouen, <BR>Reims and Chartres. We've also visited Champagne and Epernay by car, but we stayed overnight. For our next trip, I've got to get to Bayeux and Provins, which is a small medieval towns that time has forgotten. Has anyone else been there?

I spent several days in Bayeux and highly recommend it. Of course, there is the famous tapestry, but also many WWII sites of interest too. It was one of the best places I've been to, everyone should see the D-day beaches and the war museum and buy plenty of Calvados to bring home!