Amanda_Lumley

Thank you all so much for your replies. You guys are amazing. Thank you also Stu for sending me your Dordogne Itinerary. Perhaps I need to re think this. Could you please give me advise on this itinerary? We arrive in CDG at 1620 so I was thinking about the train down to Lyon that night and a couple of nights there to tick it off my bucket list. Pick up a car. I believe the Dordogne area is beautiful, but had never considered the Tarn. I would also love to see the Millau Bridge as I watched a documentary on the engineering of it and was fascinated. The Dordogne was were I was planning to relax, so after realising my original itinerary was to hectic, thought about changing it to a week around Roque Gageau and another around Domme after looking at the information you kindly sent Stu. But perhaps a week on the Tarn and a week in the Dordogne would be better? I agree, a gite is the way to go, and thank you for the websites. A pool is a great suggestion, thanks. I would also like to see the Bayeux tapestry, half day in Honfleur, MSM, and my husband would like to see the D Day beaches. This is why we picked Bayeux for 4 nights. I thought a stay in Amboise would be a great stopover on the way from the Dordogne to Bayeux. Am i doing this the right way around?

StuDudley

>>a few years ago in Paimpol we booked a chambre d'hôte where they spoke no english at all and I'm sure they didn't have an english description. perhaps I am misremembering.<<

Nope - your memory is probably correct. This is something "new" that first appeared a few years ago when they made changes to their software. It took me a while to discover it. I believe on prior software version, if you "clicked" on "English" & there was no English version - the French version would appear.

Stu Dudley

StuDudley

Amanda

Here is what I would do:

- Land at CDG, rent a car, and drive to Honfleur and stay for 2 nights. I'll send you my Normandy/Brittany itinerary.

- Visit the D-Day beaches and the tapestry & stay in Bayeux for 2 nights. Of course, you can distribute the Honfleur/Bayeux nights anyway you want.

- Visit MSM in the am, drive to Rennes, return the car, and if you have time - visit Rennes (one of our "top 5" cities in France - after Paris). Take the 16:09 TGV to Lyon that arrives at 20:30. No train change. There is an early morning train also. Stay in Lyon for 2-3 nights. Don't miss the Traboules while in Lyon.
http://www.francetoday.com/articles/...traboules.html

- Take one of the many TGVs from Lyon to Montpellier. Rent a car, visit Pezenas for several hours (not on a Sunday), and drive to the Gorges du Tarn. Here is the gite where we stayed in the Tarn, with views of the Millau Viaduct. It is a huge gite & has a heated pool (we were there during a heatwave and the pool was too hot).
http://www.gites-de-france.com/locat...4,12G2411.html
Stay 1 week - Sat to Sat. But you can obviously leave early if you so desire. Proprietor does not speak English - but our non French-speaking friends stayed there several months after we stayed there with no problems.

- Drive to Rocamadour, stopping in Carcassonne for a 2 1/2 hr visit along the way. Stay 2-3 nights near Rocamadour and visit the places I mentioned above.

- Drive to the Sarlat area and stay in a gite for 7-9 nights.

- Drive towards Brive la Gaillarde, and visit Collonges la Rouge. Drive the short distance to Brive, return the car, and take one of the many trains to Paris.

If a gite in Sarlat only rents Sat to Sat - visit the Tarn, Sarlat, then the Rocamadour area and then Brive to Paris.

IMO, it is not a good use of time to drive from Sarlat to the Loire (5 1/2 hrs) & stay for only 1 night - then on to Normandy. Many chateaux may close by the time you get to the Loire. Visiting a "biggie" chateau will take several hours.

Stu Dudley

rosemaryoz

Hi again Amanda. Sarlat, Domme and La Roque Gageac are within a couple of dozen kms of each other, so no point moving from Sarlat to La Roque...same neighborhood! Sarlat is a busy market town, while places like St Cyprien is an active village with all amenities and a good weekly market,and much easier to get in and out from each day, with the summer traffic. Villages like Domme and La Roque Gageac will be very busy in July, even though they are small in themselves.

The pool suggestion is a great idea, because July is generally hot weather. Because July is a peak summer month, you will be unlikely to get a gite rental with pool for nine nights - they usually insist on bookings by the week (99% have Saturday changeovers in this area too). Have a look at a Dordogne map, and if you focus on villages in the southeastern quadrant, you will be well-placed to see all the most famous attractions of the area. Even if a village is small, it can still be a good gite base, if it has services, so check the rental ads for what amenities are in the village.

If you want to explore a different part, then the area around Brantome is also lovely, but quieter. Likewise, the Tarn is a much quieter area than the Sarlat area of the Dordogne, so I guess it depends how badly you want to see Millau, compared to all the caves, chateaux and medieval villages of the Dordogne? If you base for two weeks in the Dordogne, it is still very achievable to make daytrips across to Rocamadour, Gouffre de Padirac, St Cirq Lapopie etc. Many people do.

Wherever you base, there are plenty of rental listing sites to research a gite, like Homeaway.com, or Holiday-Lettings.co.uk, or VRBO.com, or France-Voyage.com etc.

Driving from the Sarlat area to Amboise is about 5 hours via autoroute, and if you want to stay overnight in a small hotel, I think it's worth the stop. You could leave early, and be in Amboise by noonish. The big chateaux stay open later in summer, so you could easily see Chambord (closes at 6pm) or Cheverny (closes at 6.30) or Chenonceau (closes at 8pm) that afternoon. Allow a couple of hours at each chateau. Use the next morning to explore Amboise on foot before you head north.

StuDudley

>>Sarlat area to Amboise is about 5 hours via autoroute,....You could leave early, and be in Amboise by noonish.<<

I would "budget" more time than that. In 5 hrs, you could easily hit construction on the Autoroute and the un-avoidable "deviation" where everyone is funneled into one lane, and driving as fast as the slowest truck. Plus pottie stops, breakfast/lunch, and back ups at any toll booths. I would budget at least 5 1/2-6 hrs. So if you, hubby, and the 12 YO daughter can get up and on the road by 6am (no breakfast?) you could make it to Amboise by noonish. Finding parking in Amboise can be a tad difficult (we were there for 2 weeks last year). If you decide to check into your hotel before visiting a chateau, you probably won't get to the chateau (closest "biggie" is Chenonceaux) until 1-2PM. We got to Chenonceaux when it first opened (I think 9AM) last year in early July. It was mobbed by noon. We departed Chenconceaux around 2pm after having lunch there and then photos of the exterior with the sun on the "other" side of the chateau.

Then the next day - you have a 4 hr drive to Bayeux. That's 9-10 hrs in the car with one chateau visit. If you want to visit a chateau, I would visit Versailles from Paris.

Stu Dudley

Amanda_Lumley

Thank you so much Stu and rosemaryoz. Your information is invaluable. I cant thank you enough. I think i'll leave my visit to Amboise for another time. Hadn't even thought about doing the itinerary that way around, but I'm going to take your advice. Could i bother you with asking who you recommend for car rental?

rosemaryoz

Hi Amanda, if you're going to reverse the order of your itinerary, then yes, definitely drop the Amboise sidetrip. But otherwise it's a perfectly good stopover for you between Sarlat and Bayeux (several hotels & chambres d'hotes have on-site parking there too).

But given you've never been to this region before, I still would recommend two weeks in the Dordogne (maybe a week in different areas of it if you want to break it up) as there are simply so many impressive, memorable things to see and do, especially with children.

StCirq

As rosemaryoz notes, La Roque-Gageac and Domme are practically next door to each other - wouldn't make any sense to rent for a week each there. I'd also caution against staying in either town because they will be mobbed in July, and: You have to drive up a small twisty road to get into Domme, and the town has ancient stone gates - traffic getting in and out of those gates can be murderous in July; as for La Roque-Gageac, like Beynac, it's on a very narrow road by the river that gets jammed with tour buses and traffic in July and August - plus people heading for the river darting all over the place. I wouldn't recommend either of those towns as a base at that time of year. As rosemary noted, St-Cyprien, while busy at that time of year, doesn't have those ingress/egress issues. Meyrals is another good choice, or Tamniès, or St-Géniès, or Campagne, or the hills above Le Bugue (including St-Cirq), or plenty of others if you want to go a bit farther afield. But you do need to book soon!

And yes, you can't go wrong with two weeks in the Dordogne. There is more than enough to keep you busy there for two weeks - way more. I'd save the Lot and Tarn for another 2-week visit sometime in the future.

I always rented through AutoEurope, a broker. Probably did 150+ rentals with them and was always satisfied. Excellent customer service, and they have a 24/7 assistance number if you need help.

bilboburgler

Another vote for autoeurope, they screwed up once and rang me to advise see what "we" could do, turned out that their proposal was better than my original booking, very impressed.

StuDudley

>>We arrive in CDG at 1620<<

I didn't notice your arrival time when I constructed my suggested itinerary.

By the time you pass through immigration, retrieve your luggage, and pick up a car - it will be 18:00 and perhaps too late to drive to Honfleur. I would instead drive the very short distance to Chantilly and stay the first night there. Next morning visit the Chateau before heading to Normandy. Get your chateau fix at Chantilly. We stayed in Chantilly for the night at the tail end of one of our trips before departing for home. If you want to know the hotel we stayed in - let me know.

Stu Dudley

Amanda_Lumley

Thank you so much. StCirq, rosemaryoz, bilboburgler, StuDudley,and everyone, you're a wealth of information. Stu, could you please advises where to stay in Chantilly? Much appreciated. Amanda Lumley

welltraveledbrit

Chantilly is quite charming. it's an affluent town with a lovely chateau and of course the fab cream!. Here are some photos to give you an idea of what you'll find
http://www.somuchmoretosee.com/2013/05/chantilly.html

Not sure if it's still relevant for the original poster (OP) but we drove up from Provence and very much enjoyed seeing the Pont du Gard aqueduct and the Millau Viaduct. I highly recommend the museum at the later. The drive up the tarn Gorge was spectacular, very memorable. Here's my blog post on both sites

http://www.somuchmoretosee.com/2013/...d-viaduct.html

We really enjoyed staying at Estaing and Conques which are well worth considering, overall we loved the Auvergne.

http://www.somuchmoretosee.com/2013/...onderland.html

http://www.somuchmoretosee.com/2013/...-auvergne.html

From here we went to the Dordogne and you can see posts on gardens, chateaus and other places we visited here

http://www.somuchmoretosee.com/search/label/Dordogne

You've got a lot of good advice already and may not need any more but I hope this helps.

StuDudley

http://www.chateaudemontvillargenne.com/en/

There are other hotels in the region also. Check with www.viamichelin.com

Stu Dudley

Amanda_Lumley

Thank you StuDudley and well traveledbrit, fantastic advice.
Much appreciated.