For months now, I have been trying to determine where my husband and I should spend three nights outside of Paris. We want something quiet and romantic, but that still offers the opportunities for some sightseeing, great restaurants, and shopping as we will be celebrating our first anniversary.

Here's the kicker: The side trip will happen over New Year's Eve, so the season definitely needs to be taken into consideration. We've never been to France before and there are so many choices!

Please make some suggestions for us!

Take the TGV to Avignon. Shopping, restaurants and great sightseeing in the vicinity. Rent a car and visit the area - it's actually almost high season around here then because it's so popular with tourists at Christmastime - so everything will be open.

Patricia

Patricia,
Thank you so much for that suggestion! I wish I could skip my summer class tonight so I could spend the evening researching the area straight away!

Thanks, again!

Second the Avignon suggestion. Easy to reach from Paris by TGV, but recommend you purchase your ticket in advance...it's a busy time for TGV travel. If you want to have a formal NYE dinner at a good restaurant, you should probably reserve that a few weeks (at least) in advance as well. Otherwise, have an early simple meal, and toast NYE by yourselves with a good bottle of champagne.
This is one of the more elegant hotels in Avignon
www.heurope.com
Pick a hotel that has a nice fireplace in its lobby salon.

FYI, the hotel's rates aren't bad for that week-end, 141 euros per night (going up to 449 per night for their most luxurious rooms and even more for suites).

OR- how about Rheims, land of bubbly wines? We enjoyed it in early December, touring the Champagne houses, drinking lots of Champagne. visiting the lovely cathedral, drinking more Champagne, visiting the art museum to see their Corots, drinking more Champagne...

Maybe someone knows if the Christmas village/huts will still be open in the town square at this time?

We stayed in a budget hotel by the train station, but friends of ours went for a romantic splurge at a chateau-style hotel nearby. I'll try to find the name...

I'd vote for St Vaast in Normandy, staying at the Hotel de France http://www.france-fuchsias.com/en-som.html Make sure you have one of the rooms in the annexe overlooking the garden. It's not a top end hotel, but the rooms are very comfortable and the restaurant superb.

We celebrated our Silver Wedding anniversary with me eating a shellfish feast, while husband enjoyed meat. You really get the best out of the area if you enjoy shellfish, but there are lots of restaurants that do good meat, too.

There is a weekly market in town on a Saturday, and lots of places to visit including Normandy beaches, Mont St Michel, Bayeux, Cherbourg all suitable for day trips even if the weather is not great. And if you don't feel like that then you can just curl up with a bottle of wine and relax.

In Rheims, the fancy hotel was Chateau Les Crayeres. The restaurant is supposed to be fabulous.

The restaurant Les Crayeres was fabulous until chef Boyer retired. More recent reports indicate that things aren't the same, although the hotel is still excellent.

Paucie, shopping and romantic are contradictions in terms.

How far away from Paris shall it be?

The closest circle would include some wonderfully romantic castles which are just 30 minutes driving time away from Paris. I recommend Vaulx de Cernay.
http://www.abbayedecernay.com/

The next circle is about 60 minutes from the Paris. To the south, it would be Fontainebleau, to the north Chantilly. Both are magnificent chateaux, and you find romantic accomodation nearby.
For Chantilly, I recommend Chateau de la Tour:
http://www.lechateaudelatour.fr/
In Fontainebleau, we stayed at Hotel Legris et Parc. It had simple rooms, but a most beautiful bar, a nice pool, and a good restaurant. Here the email adress:
[email protected]

Shopping museums and romantic can go together
And as DaveinParis mentioned in one of your other postings, Dijon (heart and capital of Burgundy)can be a good compromise.

My Dijon pics with or without snow can give you an idea : http://tinyurl.com/okerl

Happy travels!
coco

Underhill--you are so right. The restaurant has declined, even from last year. Without the restaurant, what the hotel really offers is not worth the price in my opinion.

We loved Bayeux, our side trip. We did a ten hour tour of the Dday beaches, for personal reasons. It is kind of cold, but very interesting history. Battlebus tours took us to about 8 different sites. We stayed in the town of Bayeux and loved it. Beautiful Notre Dame church, interesting shopping (tapestries, lace, apple products), wonderful restaurants, parks, boulangeries. We fell in love with the town (which isn't all that little), the food and the people. We were there on a Sunday and May Day but were still able to find some things open. We even ran into a little flower market on May Day. Just charming. Only a two hour train ride from Paris. You get to see a lot of country side and it is beautiful. Nice change from Paris landscape. Not that we didn't love the Paris landscape...

On a completely different note, I would go skiing in the Alps! TGV to Grenoble is only 3 or 4 hours. We spent a week in summer in Vaugany, the backside of Alp d'Huez of Tour de France fame. Beautiful town, fabulous tram, NO AMERICANS! Built on a hillside, felt like we were in the Sound of Music. Even if you don't ski its fabulous! Talk about getting away from it all, while enjoying great wine and fondue and raclette!

The shopping is mandatory, you see, because my husband will need ample opportunities to purchase my anniversary gift!

I can't wait to check out all of your suggestions!

Are you spending nights in Paris on this trip? That looks like a pretty good place to shop, if you can afford it. I tried to get an anniversary present out of my husband while we were over there but when we looked at the prices the LV purse was out of the question. Drats. Said "Paris" was the anniversary present. Actually he was right.

We actually had a great time in Strasburg. From there you could rent a car and go to Colmar and the Alsace wine road. Everything was open. Someone else said Reims and we went on the way back but everything was closed except for Tatinger. You may have better luck in Epernay. It was great fun.