First trip - Paris and ??
 

My husband and I will be visiting France for the first time this fall. We want to spend 5 days in Paris and 6 days in the countryside. We're looking for wine tasting, history, beautiful countryside/little villages. What do you suggest?

Burgundy and as far south down the Rhone river valley as you care to go.<BR><BR>What a great "Fodorites' trip" this would make! October?<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>

You could go to the Loire area. Chateaux, villages, and wine in Vouvray area. Unless you've been to Germany and would not find it French enough, I'd most heartily recommend Strasbourg and the Alsatian wine road. cutest villages anywhere but more a French/German combination than typically French. Lots of wine.

Les Chateaux de la Loire (castles, wines...etc) or Brittany in the West

Bordeaux - not the city especially, but all the small towns and villages around it. Lots of wine chateaux at which to taste wine, eat and sometimes stay; villages like St Emilion (recognize the label?). This is the home of Elinor of Aquitaine, so there's history up the wahzoo. Go to a bookstore, find "Beautiful Villages of the Dordogne", put a sheet of plastic over the pictures to catch the drool.

If you'll be there in November -- third Thursday -- you should go to the Lyon area for Beaujolais Nouveau. Didn't care for 2001, but in 2000 it was really good. And there are tastings everywhere, in Lyon and the villages in the Beaujolais area. And it's an area full of history.

topping, for Diann...<BR>