Whatever your destination is, I bet it'll be good. Kinda curious what travels you decide on..oh and take some pics!

keep us posted!

Lynn

I've been playing around with this itinerary (upsides to planning a year in advance). I think I'm now going to try to do 2 weeks of travel making my way to Alsace on the front end, stay in Ribeauville for a month-ish in the middle, and then 1 week making my way back to Paris to fly home on the back end. The current plan is 5 nights London, fly from London to Bergerac and spend 4 nights in Dordogne (1st night in Les Eyzies, so we can get up early to line up for Font de Gaume tickets, then La Roque Gageac the rest of the time), 2 nights in Bordeaux (might cut this, but I need to get to Bordeaux to catch a train to next location), 3 nights in Tours then make my way to Ribeauville. For the end trip, 4 nights in Dijon, 3 nights in Lyon (more nights in Dijon just because I would leave Alsace in the evening, so its an extra night, but time is actually split between Dijon and Lyon), then Paris to catch plane home. I also want to do a weekend in the Black Forest.

Reminder that we won't have a car, so this is partly designed around transportation options. I think I can fly London-Bergerac, take a train (or maybe taxi because the train doesn't seem super convenient) from Bergerac to Les Eyzies; walk to caves in Les Eyzies area; taxi Les Eyzies to La Roque Gageac; kayak around Dordogne river area; taxi to Sarlat and train to Bordeaux; train Bordeaux to Tours; train to Amboise one afternoon; probably a day tour to see Chambord, Cheverny and Blois; train to Chenonceau; Train from Tours to Strasbourg and bus from there to Ribeauville. Then trains from Colmar - Dijon - Lyon - Paris.

For Black Forest weekend, I think I can take the train Friday evening (I'll be working in Ribeauville, so need to leave after work) to Gegenbach, spend the night there. Spend Saturday making my way down the train line, stopping at Open Air Museum and in Triberg, spend the night in Donaueschingen (chosen because its where the train lines intersect; no idea if its a nice town, but we'll only be sleeping there). Then Sunday make our way east on the Hells Valley train line to Freiberg, spend the afternoon there, then back to Colmar / Ribeauville, which seems to require train to Breibach, then a bus because the train connection between Freiberg and Colmar was destroyed in WWII.