Hi, I'm travelling to France with a friend in a few months. We've both been to Paris before but nowhere else in the country, and so we're only staying in Paris for a couple of days. We're planning on getting around by train.

We'll be arriving on December 30 from London, spending New Years in Paris, and then leaving Paris on around January 2. We need to fly to our next stop from London on January 14, and so we were originally planning on doing a loop and making a return journey from Paris to London, but have just realised that it may make more sense to do a one-way trip around France, ending up down south, and then fly from Marseilles or Nice (or wherever) back to London.

Even having read through a guide book, it's hard to tell which cities to go to, and which won't be so exciting. As it's our first trip to France outside of Paris we wanted to do all the things that would make up a "French" holiday - chateaux, wines, etc., all that kind of thing.

What would you recommend?? Our top priority at the moment is deciding our last stop, so that we can get a flight back to London on the 14th.

Hi

At that time of year the South makes sense. And the cheapest way back to London is low cost flight. Most of these these flights are from Nice, Marseille, Nimes, Montpellier & Perpignan (all conveniently close to the train routes !).

Maybe the most choice is from Girona. It is in Spain, but only 40 miles from the border.

Some routings are here :
http://www.the-languedoc-page.com/to...ourism-air.htm

Bonne chance

Peter

Hi J,

You can look for flights into London airports from Franch cities at www.whichbudget.com.

Thanks for the replies. I suppose I wasn't exactly clear in what kind of information I was after. I'm aware of the great cheap flights between London and France (well, all of Europe).

I was hoping for some advice on what each of the main cities in France, other than Paris, has to offer, what there is to see and do there, etc..

That way we can try and decide on our itinerary.

Thanks.

I've just found my European rail timetable from a few months ago - funny that that's far more helpful than the guidebook.

Here is what I'm thinking of - am I missing anything essential?? Am I including something horrid??

London -> Paris -> Tours -> Bordeaux (not so sure on this one - seems a little dull...) -> Lyon -> Marseille -> [possible day-trip to Aix-en-Provence] -> Nice -> [pop over to Monaco] -> Nice -> London.

How does that sound?? The only journey more than a couple of hours is Bordeaux to Lyon, which is about six hours.

Before you go any further, pick up a copy of the Michelin Green Guide to France. The guide includes sightseeing itineraries: very useful for research. There are also ratings of sights, from 1 to 3 stars, and excellent descriptions of the places covered in the guide.

I was going to say that for the info you want and the extent of it -- summaries of what to do, the sites, and value of all the main cities in France -- you really should get a guidebook. But I notice you say you read one and don't feel it still tells you enough, so I don't think anyone else will be able to help much more on that score, unless you just read a bad guidebook. I do agree that I like the Michelin guides and their ratings system, but there is one for every small region and you can't probably find them all at your library or won't want to buy them all.

I think your suggestion sounds pretty good, but I'd rather go to Avignon or Aix than Marseille as a central point down there before Nice. But maybe something in particular interested you about Marseille, and that would work also. I haven't been to Bordeaux so can't comment on that idea. I just get the feeling that you are thinking these places are going to be like you read about them in summer and they aren't in the dead of winter. SO, if some of this has to do with reading about good wine regions, vineyards, etc., I don't know that I'd plan that around January 1st.