I am in the very earliest stages of planning a visit to France - it will be in September 2020 that this trip will take place, so just beginning to look at possibilities.

A little background: My husband and I are in our late 60s early 70s, and have traveled extensively and independently throughout Europe, Asia, and south & central America over many years. We live in central coastal California. Last year we spent a month in Lorraine, the Alsace, and Burgundy (along with a half-week in the Mosel River Valley, Germany), and we just returned two weeks ago from five weeks spent in Spain - Andalucia, La Mancha, Valencia, and Barcelona. We are active and prefer renting apartments or cottages whenever possible - and we will likely have a rental car unless we are spending any time in larger cities. It is likely we would fly in and out of Paris, unless there is a better option, take a train to our first destination, and pick up a car a few days later. For this trip, we are hoping to spend time in the south of France, although I am hoping to spend a bit of time in Annecy, so there may be a detour along the way. We are avid walkers, love to explore historic and cultural areas, and are very interested on local food and wine. Museums are of interest, but intermittently. Shopping holds little appeal.

I'm taking a page from another Fodorite's book, and hoping to create a "bicycle spoke" type of adventure - finding two or three charming villages/towns and renting apartments or cottages with the intent of taking lots of day trips in various directions. I am not a huge fan of moving from one accommodation to the next over and over- I dislike the packing and unpacking, and I like being on a place long enough to feel a little bit as if I am a part of the neighborhood. We like taking back roads, at times getting lost, and finding unplanned surprises along the way.

I realize this is a rather hazy description of what we are hoping to plan - it's just in the earliest of stages of taking shape right now, but I am hoping some of you may be able to suggest interesting not-to-be-missed places and maybe even a rough itinerary. I'm open to anything at this point. Thank you!

Since we retired early in life so we could travel more, we have spent 2 months vacationing in Europe every year since 1999. About 80% of the time has been in France. We usually visit for a month in June and a month in Sept. With a few trips to Paris & London just before Christmas. Our normal trip consists of 2 weeks at a single spot, before moving on to another location for 2 weeks. We have rented a total of 74 gites/houses in France & stayed in them for 118 weeks. Plus apartments in Paris, Nice, & St Tropez. So I think we travel like you do.

Our two favorite regions in France are the Dordogne & Provence. Followed by the Cote d'Azur, Brittany, and the Languedoc. I think a good itinerary would be to fly to either Paris & take the TGV from CDG to Provence/Avignon, or fly to Marseille. Rent a car & spend time in the Luberon or St Remy & do the day trips elsewhere. Then drive to the Dordogne - stopping along the way in Carcassonne for a 2 1/2 hr visit. Stay in Sarlat in the Dordogne if you want to base in a village. Then drive 1 hr to Brive la Gaillarde and take the train back to Paris.

I developed a 35 page itinerary for the Cote d'Azur & Provence which describes our favorite villages, markets, scenic drives, sites, restaurants, etc. I have another 20+ pager for the Dordogne. I have other itineraries also. I've sent itineraries to over 6,000 people on Fodors. If you would like a copy, e-mail me at [email protected] & I'll attach them to the reply e-mail. So so soon - we depart for another month in France a week from today.

Stu Dudley

If you have not yet visited places like Amiens, Lille or Valenciennes, it is time to take a look at them.

Thank you so much - I will email you right away.

An alternative to the crowded and touristy Luberon is the region about an hour north centered around Vaison-la-Romaine. This is the heart of the Cote du Rhone winegrowing region, and you are surrounded by vineyards and the pretty Dentelles de Montmirail. Vaison is the largest town, but still pretty small, with a sprawling market that caters to both locals and tourists--much fun to wander around and shop at after planning a couple of dinner menus. There are numerous small villages in the area to wander around, some well known, like Seguret and Gigondas, others less so, like Le Barroux, which has some of the prettiest doorways I've encountered.

We've rented houses in the village of Sablet, which is not perhaps postcard pretty but is quite charming and, unlike some nearby villages, like Seguret, is a real, functioning village, with butchers, patisseries, the works. It's a great place to base yourself.

One advantage of the area around Vaison is that it puts you close to the beautiful Drome, with the gorgeous villages of Grignan, Le Poet-Laval, and many others. The toenails of the Alps, in the Isere, are also accessible (although Annecy isn't a day trip).

The Dordogne is of course beautiful, and if you haven't been there it's a great idea. Another possibility, again a bit less crowded, is the neighboring Lot, to the east-southeast of the Dordogne. Many people pop in from the Dordogne to visit Rocamadour and St Cirq-la-Popie, but the Lot has much more to offer. We spent two weeks there last summer as part of our time in France without finding time to visit the Dordogne at all, although we planned to; it's a very beautiful region with tons to see. (The first part of our trip was based in Aix, which is still probably my favorite place of all in France; from the Lot we went on to Paris fpr a few days and then home.)

Happy planning!

I didn't get the sense that this was a bicycle trip, British Caicos.

I am most flattered that you would think me a cyclist! No, we will be driving distances and walking through villages and vineyards. But I will take your advice into consideration. Thank you.

I just love this

You have received some excellent advice! Will this trip be 4 or 5 weeks like your other trips? Provence is wonderful, from Aix to St. Remy to the Luberon villages. We visited our daughter who lives in Provence in April, and we visited the Dentelles region (that frenchaucouer recommends) for the first time for a day. The countryside is beautiful, and I hope to return for a longer visit. I don't think the Luberon will be crowded in October, so perhaps you can visit both the Luberon and Cote du Rhone region. Perhaps spend a week in each location. You would still have time to visit the Dordogne, also beautiful, and known for prehistoric caves, castles, gardens, and duck country.

I so agree, also check out Compiegne. We always get cheap flights to Paris so now explore other parts for the first week and then spend the last week in Paris.

We enjoy this way of travelling and stay one or two weeks in one place in self catering accommodation. Since 2012, we have stayed in a lot of areas in southern France and enjoyed them all. If you click on my name, you will find my reports from four of our trips. The later ones ( 2016 and 2018 )are better organised in that I labelled each region. You may find some places you are planning to visit or places you had not considered. We are especially fond of South West France and Burgundy.
Bon voyage.

Karen Woo - Yes, I am thinking about five weeks. It will probably be from the third week of August until the end of September or beginning of October.

Macross - We love Paris, and will likely spend at least four or five days at the end of the trip if we fly in and out of CDG. We've spent quite a bit of time in Paris, but of course no one ever gets tired of that city!

rhon - I will look at your trip reports - thank you for letting me know. We were in Burgundy last summer - Beaune area (Bligny sur Ouche) and Dijon, and it was wonderful.

Thank you to everyone who has responded to my post - I spent a good part of this afternoon looking through a French guidebook. I know it's a long way off, but planning and researching for this kind of adventure is something I really love!

I agree with TPAYT that Sarlat is an excellent base. We stayed there for 4 nights at the Villa des Consuls. We also spent 2 nights in Brantome, which doesn't seem to be mentioned much on this site. We were there in May, and Brantome was just "waking up" from the winter, so to speak. It was much quieter than Sarlat. Brantome is a pretty town with the Dronne River running through it. We had a guided tour of the Abbey. Took a scenic drive along the Dronne River and visited small, pretty villages such as Bourdeilles, Creyssac, Lusignac, etc. From there we visited Chateau de Hautefort, on our way to Sarlat. I think Brantome would be less crowded in September than some other places.

Great ideas! Just a couple of logistical notes. We are basically very similar to you in terms of our travel style-long trips with a car based in one or two spots in an apartment or holiday home. We are based in Seattle and for the past 3-4 years now have opted to fly Norwegian premium class to Gatwick. We like the fact that we can essentially fly a "cheaper" business class and most importantly can book one way tickets allowing us an easier way to fly the equivalent of open jaw flights. And we much prefer smaller easier airports. So rather than Paris these days we typically take Norwegian to Gatwick and connect to Bordeaux or Nice on either British Airways or Easy Jet. It is much easier than the CDG for picking up cars and getting in and out. You didn't mention if you typically fly out of SFO or OAK or LAX. But Norwegian has great connections in and out of San Francisco or LA area.Also, if you stay more than 21 days, which it sounds like you will, check out the Peugeot Open Europe car plan. We use it every year since we stay anywhere from 3 months to 6 months (we are dual US French nationals so no visa restrictions on our length of stay). It is a great program since you are driving a brand new car and you can be very specific about the features you want-automatic versus manual drive, size and model of car, etc. In addition, it includes full insurance, road side assistance and any repairs. One year they even came to our village house in France to repair a windshield that had a rock hit it! We typically use AutoFrance.net, but there is also a program through Renault. We have found the Peugeot program a bit cheaper and they give a discount for repeat customers. You can pick the car up at many airports, train stations or in-city locations in France and drop in another city in France for no charge and only around $125 or so if you want to drop in another country. Anyway, we love the program. One little thing to remember that is a little different from a car rental is that they deliver the car with only a little bit of gas-so as opposed to a rental you have to remember to fill it right when you pick it up-it took us a trip or two to remember that Here are a couple of links for you to explore:

www.autofrance.net

www.renault-eurodrive.com/en


In terms of areas-just a couple of comments. You might consider Brittany for the August portion of your trip. It is much nicer than Provence during the heavy tourist season. Then you could work you way down from there. In general, we tell friend that both the Lot and Dordogne are places where you get a huge amount of "bang for your buck" in terms of vistas, castles, great food and wine etc. In general we hang out a lot in the southwest of France during the tourist season because it is a lot less crowded than the med. area and still feels like you just fighting to heavy tourism.

Last but not least-just a note on Annecy area. Our bother in law lives there so we go there a lot. Do be aware that the driving there can be challenging in the area-lots of twisty mountain roads and tunnels (which I personally dislike more than the twisty roads). But of course that just comes with territory and is you live on the California coast it may be something that you are quite used to.

Here are a couple of links:

Okay - I am definitely going to check out Sarlat - thank you so much for that advice!

jpie - Wow, thank you for all that great information! The August part of this trip will likely be just the last couple days of the month, if even that. We may be looking at the first week of September into the second week of October. I especially like the info about car rentals - I will be sure to look at the options you suggested. And, yes, we know about Norwegian - just flew from SFO to Gatwick about six weeks ago on our way to Madrid and back through OAK from Barcelona , and last summer we flew r/t to CDG with them for a month in eastern France. Their premium class is very comfortable, at a fraction of the cost of business on other airlines. My only concern is that Norwegian has had so many financial ups and downs that I am reluctant to purchase tickets very far in advance. As far as the winding roads in the Annecy area - we live in the Santa Cruz Mountains - winding roads are a daily occurrence for us

Everyone seems to flock to Sarlat, and that's understandable if only because it's the market hub of the region. It will still be crowded in September, though. But there are many, many other towns in the Dordogne that hold plenty of appeal and that have great markets and from which you can drive into and out of Sarlat pretty easily to see all the historical sites there.

There are winding roads all over the Dordogne, too, a lot of them very narrow.