fakemark

I'm planning on flying into Nice in late June and renting a car to drive up to Paris. I'd like to pass through Arles, Provence, Sarlat, Amboise, Loire Valley, and Giverny on the way over a 3 day period.

I am having trouble figuring out

1) how much driving it will actually be to do this kind of ramble.

2) how much the auto tolls will be.

3) is it really worth the hassle of driving and risk of theft to see these areas, rather than just taking the train.

Any thoughts about this are greatly appreciated, especially any specific itineraries (including prices). Thanks!

StCirq

In 3 days? Well, even if you did this straight through on the shortest route by autoroute all the way (which you can't if you want to get to all the places you've mentioned), it would be about 950 kms, or more than 300 kms a day. Add another 150 km or more to get off the highway and visit all these places and back on the highway again - and add some for getting lost. It doesn't sound like much fun at all, and I doubt you'd even see anything much in the places you've listed.

Tolls would be about 60€

If you have only three days, you couldn't see all these places by train - I don't think logistics and schedules would make it possible.

Any ONE of the places you've mentioned, except Giverny and Amboise (which is in the Loire Valley, btw), is worth three full days or more.

What are you trying to accomplish with this visit to France? It's kind of hard to imagine how someone would come up with a plan like this - is this your only chance of seeing France and you want to get to as many places as you can squeeze in in three days? Where are you flying into Nice from? Is this part of a longer trip?

fakemark

Yes, it may sound crazy. We're doing a whirlwind trip through Italy and France in 2 weeks, and I'd like to see France outside of Paris as much as possible. I know you could spend 2 weeks in Paris alone without ever leaving the city and still have a full trip.

I'm trying to get a sense of what is reasonable, so your perspective is very helpful in that regard. I had been glancing at maps of France, but hadn't been able to figure out how much driving that actually is. 300 miles a day is more than I'd like to do, but not out of the question if roads in France move as fast as roads in California do (the 400 miles drive from LA to SF usually takes 6 hours).

I suppose I could fly into Paris and just do a loop through the countryside: Loire Valley and maybe the Bordeaux area? Does that sound more manageable in 3 days? I just don't want to cut our time in Paris any shorter than 3 days.

Thanks!

StCirq

Yes, you could do something like that in 3 days, but you didn't mention Bordeaux the first time around - is it someplace you really want to see? It's a great city, I'm just wondering how it entered the mix here.

If so, what I would do is take a (very early) morning TGV to Bordeaux from Paris,to maximize your time. The trip takes 3 hours. If you get there by 10 am you can spend the better part of the day there (it's fairly compact as far as the major sites go - definitely walkable), then pick up a car and drive to St. Emilion for the night - a half-hour outside Bordeaux.

Visit the town briefly in the morning (wine shops, monolithic church, quaint cobblestone lanes, etc.), then drive to Sarlat (2 hours away), stopping along the way in some of the beautiful villages of the Dordogne and maybe seeing one of the prehistoric caves if that interests you.

Spend the second night in or near Sarlat. Definitely spend a few hours checking out Sarlat itself.

Now, do you have 3 NIGHTS or just 3 days? If the latter, you can zoom to the Loire, catch a castle, race on to Giverny, and then back to Paris (or drop the car off outside Paris and train in). If the former, you could zoom to the Loire, catch a castle, spend the night in Amboise, and then the next morning (Day 4)go to Giverny and back to Paris.

Even at this pace, you're going to be kicking yourself at all the things you'll be seeing that you don't have time to explore, but it's better than the original plan.

If you don't care about Bordeaux, I'd take the TGV to Tours, pick up a rental car there and do a loop beginning in the Loire and dipping down into the Dordogne and back.

fakemark

Thanks for the very helpful advice, StCirq. I mention Bordeaux because it doesn't seem too far from Paris; I had excluded it before because I was trying to make a neat curve from the south into Paris.

The only must-see area for me outside of Paris is the Loire Valley. Sarlat, Amboise, Arles, Provence, Bordeaux, and Burgundy all sound great, but I am prepared to not be able to see some of them.

If I took your last suggestion (TGV to Tours then drive the Loire and Dordogne) why wouldn't I just pick up the rental car in Paris and drive the whole loop? Would it save a lot of time to take the TGV, enough to outweigh the extra cost?

I'm just trying to figure out how to maximize my time in the countryside (it's 3 days, not nights). Your suggested itineraries are helpful. Do you know where I could find a map of France that has distances between cities, time to drive those segments, and what the tolls are?

Thanks!

StCirq

Hi, fakemark:

You can check out maps and distances and driving times and tolls on www.mappy.com.

Fine, then, if the Loire Valley is your priority, that makes for a nice, do-able 3-day trip. I would take the train just because it's so fast and driving out of Paris can be an ordeal, but if you're comfortable with it, sure, drive. I'd spend two nights in Amboise and on the morning of the third day I'd drive west to Angers, check out the château and tapestries, get on the highway and drive to Chartres and stop to see the cathedral, then head to Giverny and back to Paris. THAT is a manageable 3 days!

If you do want to check out train schedules and costs, the site is www.sncf.com

fakemark

StCrq, or anybody else,

I think I'm going to limit our country ramblings in France to Burgundy and maybe the Loire. We'll be coming from Italy.

My hope is to take the overnight train from Pisa or Milan to Lyon or Dijon. I don't know if there are overnighters that do that. Then we'll take buses to get to Beaune and hopefully Semur. After a couple days, we'll take the train to Paris, and maybe hit the Loire as a daytrip.

The other option is to take a short flight from Italy to Paris and rent a car for 3 days. The prices that I've got quotes for are about 300E for 3 days; that sounds awfully expensive when you throw in tolls and petrol.

Any thoughts on which is a better way to go?