My wife and I (in our late 20's) are planning a trip to France but cant spend more than 9 days. We have heard a lot about Paris and South of France. We were thinking of spending 3 nights in Paris and then drive to Nice with a one night stop over at Lyon. We love driving and road trips.

Is it a good idea to drive through Paris to Lyon to Nice?

With Nice as our base, we intend exploring Cannes, Monaco, Marseilles, St. Tropez- probably spend an entire day each in the above cities but return to Nice by late evening.

Just wanted to check if the above itenary is advisable and do-able? How is the scenery while driving from Paris to Lyon to Nice? Will we get to see the French Alps on the way?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

>> We love driving and road trips. <<

This is not compatible with visiting cities. Also France is a fairly large country and it'd take quite a bit of time to cover the distances you propose. Thus this itinerary is not 'advisable and do-able' IMO.

My suggestion would be to visit Paris for a few days, then take the TGV to Avignon, rent a car and explore the beautiful Provence. You'll love the driving there!

Save the French Riviera (Nice, et al) for another trip.

I would take the TGV to Lyon, and either take the train on to Nice and rent a car there, or rent in Lyon. Although I'm about to leave for Nice and do the whole thing by public transport, but I'm traveling alone.

I agree with taking the TGV to Avignon and driving from there. It's only 2h45 from Paris. (Marseille is 3 hours.)

<b>RMJK</b> welcome to the forum.

Regretfully, not only is your itinerary as proposed not advisable, I should think it would be difficult to accomplish even on a dare. You might spend the bulk of 2 out of nine days on the autoroute just to reach Nice from Paris.

I might suggest 4 - 5 days in Paris followed by a road trip to Normandy, the Loire Valley, or Burgundy. You might be able to include Normandy with the Loire Valley or even take the train to Avignon as TuckH suggests. The traffic around Nice can seriously shrink your day-trip options. Many people visit Nice without a car.

If visiting the Alps is a priority, you might make a road trip which includes Burgundy and Jura. You could rent a car from Paris, leaving it in Dijon as there is an early TGV from there which arrives directly at CDG sufficiently early to make many flights.

Much depends upon the details omitted from your question: 1. from where will you arrive in Paris (any time zone changes?) and to where will you depart France (do you need to catch a flight at a specific time).

I also agree you might want to save the French Riviera for a follow-on visit.

I think you need to check a map, perhaps, as some of your ideas aren't going to work very well and to see where the Alps are in relation to Lyon, for example. Mainly, Marseille is too far from Nice for a day trip -- it's almost 200 km or 100 miles. Now if you spend hours that day just driving to/from Marseille, maybe, but the traffic down there can be terrible in high season. Perhaps I missed it, but I'm not clear when you want to do this. Now Cannes and St Tropez are certainly do-able from Nice as a day trip, as well as Monaco, but you could do most of that without a car and it would be easier -- St Tropez isn't that easy to get to by train, but the others are. Your itinerary doesn't sound like you are even that interested in anything but the citis, as they take up all your time, so you might just get rid of the car.

For 9 days I woudl recommend 5 days in Paris, and 4 days in Burgundy. Assuming you have 9 full days.

Paris is amazing, and 5 days woudl allow you time to walk, see the major sites, some museum, and enjoy the ambiance of Paris over a glass of wine or cafe.

Then you can easily train to Dijon, pick up your car at the train station and explore the lovely wine villages. Its easy to drive on the country roads, beauitiful vineyards, and of course excellent food and wine!

I second jamikins with Burgundy,Dijon and the wine coast (but not only)I don't know what month you'll be travelling but keep in mind the South can be over crowded while Burgundy remains quiet and wild Train only 1h40 from paris gare de Lyon.
http://www.burgundy-tourism.com/
http://www.cotedor-tourisme.com/index.php?lg=en
http://www.dijon-tourism.com/uk/sortir_culture.htm

Well, I think it IS possible to visit Paris and the South of France in nine days. Is it advisable? No, but if your heart is set on it I think what you have to do is spend 3-4 days in Paris and then either fly to Nice or take the TGV, which, according to their web site can get you from Paris to Nice in a little over 5.5 hours. Then you can rent a car in Nice and visit a few of the places on your list. I would not, however, try to visit Marseille. It's simply too far from Nice to comfortably do it in a day trip.

I would not drive from Paris to Nice. You would be spending too much of your time in the car on the autoroutes without seeing much scenery. If you live in the U.S. do you find driving on interstates to be interesting? It's not that different in France.

When you figure out your itinerary feel free to come back for more information. There are a lot of people here who are very familiar with France.

<i>If visiting the Alps is a priority, you might make a road trip which includes Burgundy and Jura.</i>

A little misleading, as neither Burgundy nor the Jura is in the Alps. However, given your age, you might want to train to Lyon and then drive to the Alps, perhaps do a couple of hiogh mountain passes on the way to Nice, but stay outside Nice. From Nice, loop back and drive in the Provence, dropping the car off in Avignon to train back to Paris. It will not be leisurely, but given your age and interests, it is definitely doable and will be memorable. I know because I drove the French Alps and the Provence in a week when I was your age. Get the Michelin map of France and start running your finger over the roads and figure out the mileage you are willing to cover per day. Rather than looking at the more localized Michelin guides, you might want the Michelin Green Guide to France which will show you which highlights you might be interested in seeing.

Here's the part of a report that I wrote that might interest you:

From Chamonix we sent over the Col de l'’Iséran. the Col du Galibier, the Col du Lautaret to Briançon (our hotel room had a theme of roses, different patterns and shades of roses for the bedspread, the wall paper and the curtains). Then the Col de l'’Isoard, Col de Vars, Isola to Vence (the Syndicat d’'initiative found us a room with shower for $5--1967 prices). Vence to Ste.-Maxime, where we discovered that the Côte d’Azur is not the place to be driving on August 1, and immediately drove inland toward the Grand Canon du Verdon and Digne. From Digne we drove to Apt, staying in a rather dubious <i>routiers</i>, looking for the house of friends which we never found. Apt to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse and Avignon (I recall a restaurant/cantine for students where the meal cost 7.50 FF). Then Orange to Carpentras, around the Mont Ventoux to Vaison-la-Romaine and back to Orange.

It's possible to do Paris and a little of the Riviera in 9 days - but you;re definitely rushing both.

If you do 4 days in Paris (but IMHO you really eed at least 6), then take 1 day to get to the Riviera (sorry no Lyons or alps) you wil have several days to trous by car. Do not suggest youstay in Nice - which is a large city and will take a long time to get out of. Insted stay in one of the smaller towns - so you can be onthe road in 10 minutes. Also bag Marseill - too far and not enough to do. 4 days will barely give you the highlights of the Riviera (and remember to spend at lest a day visiting a couple of the quaint little towns and museums in the hills behind the sea. As for Monte Carlo - save it fr one evening nd go to the casino and do your est James Bond number (yes, more formal dress is required for the inner rooms of the casino - but what yuo'll see there can be fabulous).

Thank you all. Your responses are indeed enlightning and help me to re-think my mode of transport within France. We actually just returned from a great road trip in Norway (covering Trondheim, Alesund, Bergen and Oslo) and were thinking on those lines.

Will revert with more help. Thank you.

Hi RMJK; To maximize your time I would suggest flying into Paris and out of Nice. Stay four days in Paris. You could do a day trip to Versailles. Then fly Easy Jet from Orly to Nice, one way for under $100.US PP, depending upon your vacation dates. One fare in July was $51US. An easy 1 1/4 hour flight. www.kayak.com Rent the car at the Nice airport and you could go north into the mountains if you like for two days. Gap comes to mind. There is a great 'castle' that you could stay in that's reasonable. Return to Nice for three days and visit the towns you mentioned. iris1745/dick

RMJK

We are doing the same route in reverse in Norway this July. I would be interested in your experience. Click on my name and you will see my e-mail address if youchoose to share your experience. Thanks.