We travelled from London to Bordeaux in one day and that included changing train stations in Paris. It was a long day but it meant we were IN Bordeaux, rather than staying somewhere for one night unnecessarily. That trip was Eurostar from London to Paris, then metro across Paris, then TGV to Bordeaux. We'd do it that way again, just allow plenty of time to queue for metro tickets and get to your next long-distance train. The bit in the middle - metro bit - took us longer than we expected.

It would have been easier to change at Lille Europe and Massy, however

neckerd

Using the German train site, I could not find any 0 stop trains from London to Massy, nor any from Lille to Bordeaux or Tours. This was for March travel. Perhaps there are some added schedules in the summer, or what they have now is a COVID schedule.

Stu Dudley

France
 

Aren't there trains that go from Paris to Marseille and Alsace-Loraine? I would think so. When I went I relied on the train but I went to Paris and the Riviera only.

I also couldn't find them.

The train system seems to be like spokes coming out of Paris, so it is easy to get from Paris to wherever, but I am trying to come up with an itinerary that avoids having to back track through Paris every time I switch locations. The Paris / Lyon / Dijon / Colmar part seems to work OK. Tours (and Loire Valley in general) is a bit out of the way, but I'd like to experience that area.

The Loire valley is all about chateaux, IMO. The countryside is not very interesting, nor are the cities & villages (except for Chinon) compared to other places you plan on visiting. We have vacationed in the Loire valley for about 10 weeks in the past 35 years (we love chateaux). If you are not huge chateaux lovers - it might not be worth all the effort to get there (there are lots of Chateaux in Burgundy - but a little different style).

Here are my wife's Shutterfly books from our most recent 2 week stay in the Loire (plus 2 weeks on the Ile de Re)
https://stududley.shutterfly.com/24
The Loire starts on page 45
Click "Full screen"

Chambord & Villandry (We hit a "max page" limit on the above book)
https://stududley.shutterfly.com/27

Stu Dudley

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Thank you, StuDudley, for posting this. I thoroughly enjoyed looking at your albums of the Loire chateaux and the one of Carcassone and the Tarn. I thought Shutterfly had completely discontinued the old function of allowing people to publicly display their trip albums, which I used to find very useful both as a source of travel information and for ideas to incorporate in our own travel albums. I guess the new approach is that you can access someone else's albums, but only if they give you or make accessible the URL.

Chauteaux is what I plan to do there. I was thinking one day we could take the train to Blois and then it looks like there's a bus from the train station there that does a loop and hits Chambord and Cheverny. And then there seems to be a train from Tours to Chenonceau that we could do the next day. Or Villandry. And maybe Chateau du Clos Luce the first afternoon, since that looks good for kids. I'll check out the pics, thanks!

You can go to my Shutterfly web site & see all my wife's books that she has put on the site. She is working on our 6 week trip to Annecy, Franche Comte, & Swiss Alps in 2006 now (Shutterfly wasn't around then). Some of the older books are no longer viewable because of upgrade incompatibility. Also, on some older books - titles & captions are often missing or truncated.

https://stududley.shutterfly.com/

Stu Dudley

I will certainly do that, Stu Dudley. I'm currently planning a trip to Provence, which might also take in Carcassone, etc.

Looking at all your photographs of the elegant dishes that have been served to you even in what I assume to have been small restaurants out in the provinces, I can see why traveling in France could become a hard habit to break.

Especially for kids
 

When my daughter and I took her 3 children (then ages 5, 10 and 13) to France, the maze on the grounds at Chenonceau was one of their favourites, and of course they loved all those dogs at Cheverny and the boat ride you can take there if you're waiting for dog-feeding time. Clos Luce is definitely worth including. The extensive gardens are set up for kids (there were school groups there at the same time we were) with many of DaVinci's inventions that kids can try out and play on. Our kids loved it. And we watched a peacock strolling around while we ate at the open-air cafe on the grounds.

If you can figure out transportation, Guedelon is a fascinating site, like a living-history farm where they are building a castle using only methods and tools of the period. Interesting to read about and watch their videos even if you can't work it in to your trip.

Thank you for posting the link to your wife's travel albums. I am enjoying them very much.

Hi again, Amicita. Not sure how I missed this back in December. It looks like you have some great info above. Here's my Menton/Lyon TR fyi:
https://www.fodors.com/community/eur...d-lyon-832984/

This is a big generality but trains are plenty between cities and most towns. We never drove but found that the smaller towns we visited all had local bus services geared to commuters and school children needs. Do-able but not always convenient. We often took a cab or a tour! Again, please report back.when you return.

The Loire is especially interesting for those who love wine, cycling and chateau. Along much of the river you will find medium speed trains to get about.

Bordeaux, Paris and Aix travel ideas
 

Looks like you have some great itinerary ideas. Here are some additional thoughts and suggestions. Bon voyage!
https://travelfam.wordpress.com/category/france-2015/
https://travelfam.wordpress.com/cate...ce-spain-2016/

Update: I'm now thinking about dropping Loire Valley, which I would like to visit at some point, but thinking maybe that will be a future trip, combined with Dordogne area, which also interests me (so many places to visit, so little time). Instead we would do Bruges, which looks great. So it would be London - Bruges - Lyon (maybe stop in Paris for an afternoon en route) - Dijon - Alsace area.

I also am going back and forth on where to stay in Alsace. The idea is that our jobs are now remote, so we can stay somewhere for a month or so, to have a more immersive experience than we generally do darting from place to place on vacation, without having to take all that time away from work. (There are a lot of practical details that would need to be worked out, so this is semi-daydreaming at this point, but I'd like to make it happen for real.) I choose Alsace as the area to land, but I am not sure about where exactly. It has to be walkable because we won't have a car. It would be nice to have access to transit for weekend trip(s). On the other hand, I prefer smaller village over big city for this purpose, and we'd like to rent a house with some outdoor space. And it also needs strong wifi, since we'll be working. Those goals are somewhat contrary to one another.

There is no need to stop over in Paris; there are direct trains from Brussels to Lyon (3 3/4 hrs journey). Brugge is 1 hr by local train from Brussels.
Lyon - Dijon - Colmar (heart of Alsace) takes 3 1/2 hrs by direct train.

France
 

What about Normandy, Masrseille, alsace lorraine... aren't those places reachable by train?

Alsace has two transport hubs, Strasbourg or Colmar. The majority of the land in Alsace is flat leading down to the Rhine. But it does rise into the Vosges mountains to the west. If I was choosing I would choose the villages on slopes of the Vosges close to Colmar and with the best bus links into town or similar sitting along the train line that runs n/s from Colmar.

Airbnb or local town websites are good sources for gites (local term).

Cycling through the vines, along cycle paths and some roads is very possible