My daughters and i will be visiting Europe this fall flying in to Paris and out of Rome. We will spend a couple days of a In each of these cities at the beginning and end of our trip and will have about two weeks in between. We are looking for non touristy quaint towns and would like to experience the culture of the every day European lifestyle. Any suggestions would be wonderful.

Will you be driving?
How many stops do you want?

There are several guide books which you might like to check out to answer your question. To start with:

Rick Steves guide books
DK Eyewitness Travel guides -- I highly recommend this if you like pictures and maps
Lonely Planet
Frommer's
Let's Go
Fodor's

You could look over some of these guide books and pick out a few places of interest, and post some questions that are more specific to the place of interest here on this forum.
I'm sure many posters here will be able to help you.

Well - Austria is a little out of the way.

Are you driving (gives you much more freedom/options) or taking the train? Do you want to stay in one town for 2/3 night and explore the area or are you looking to move every night (IMHO a really bad idea).

What are you interests? There are innumerable cute towns - do you want ones with cathedrals? castles? in the mountains? on a lake? And preferences at all?

We will be traveling by train. Not into moving each night. Wondering about the cinque de terre area and how many nights that would require. also have read about Chinon.Castles are of interest. finding something in southern France that has some history would be cool. We are really just open to suggestions and don't really have a desire to do everyone's standard European vacation.

luckytotravel, there are just too many places in the south of France that has history. I suggest that you try looking at one of the DK Eyewitness guide books and identify a few specific places of interest and then come back to this forum to ask specific questions.

Also, I don't think going to four countries in two weeks is a good idea...especially since you said you are "not into moving each night."

You've mentioned that you are interested in castles. I'm sure that you'd know where they are located, and start your research from there.

As for Cinque Terre, you could do a search for that location on this forum to find what other's have said, as well as find very interesting trip reports. Rick Steves' guide books also offer some interesting route ideas through Cinque Terre and northern Italy. You might want to check that out.

In case if you are new to this forum, I just wanted to let you know that the more specific your question, the more useful this forum will be to you. For example, if you state your budget, travel experience, and perhaps post a trip plan, then many people here will likely jump in to give you some really great suggestions.

With rail travel you have to go where the tracks take you. That would eliminate many of my favorite off-the-path destinations. Consider this itinerary:
Kandestag CH--see the Alps
Stresa--on Lago Maggiore
Levanto---nice beach town next to CT
Lucca---mid-size Tuscan city
Orvieto--if you have time

Good luck !

Hi LT,

>We are looking for non touristy quaint towns and would like to experience the culture of the every day European lifestyle. <

In truth, Paris and Rome are European cities, with everyday Europeans living there.
They are also worth more than just a few days each.

It is not going to be easy to visit quaint towns and villages without a car. For some reason, they seem to be off the main rail lines.

BTW, if you are going from Paris to Rome via the South of France, Switzerland is sort of off your route, and Austria is definitely out of the way.

Okay, I believe that our route would look a little like this, train from Paris to Lusanne then to milan(no stop) to Venice for three days then to florence and rome with possible day trips or the provence region of France with possible castle visit and then to cinque terre and then to rome. Any thoughts?

How difficult is it to get close to a quaint village and rent a car for a day?

luckytotravel, are you sure you want to do a daytrip from Rome to Provence? I don't think that's physically possible...!!

Vevey: next to Lausanne. A quaint little village. Montreux, next to Vevey, has a very nice castle to visit (Chateau Chillon)

So you have something like this:

Few days Paris
Train to Venice via Milan/Lausanne for 3 days
Train to Florence for ?? days
Train to Rome for few days

How many days and nights do you have? Keep in mind you lose AT LEAST half a day when you change locations (and I would guess the whole day on your train to Venice.

I would stick to 3-4 places if you only have a couple of weeks. If you write out what you are thinking in turns of nights it would be more helpful for us.

Hi ltt,

>or the provence region of France with possible castle visit and then to cinque terre and then to rome.<

That would be my choice.

You would want to rent a car for your Provence visit.

Train from Paris to Avignon - get car - 5 days visiting the South from Avignon to Nice. See the "sightseeing" route at www.viamichelin.com.

Train from Nice to La Spezia: See www.voyages-sncf.com

Train to Rome.

Fly home.

Enjoy your visit.

I am totally confused--I thought you wanted smaller towns and now you are talking Venice, Florence and Rome. Read a guide book and come back when you know what you want.

<< We are looking for non touristy quaint towns >>

You should rule out Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre as they are packed with tourists, although they are great places.

My recommendation for non-touristy France is north of Nice. Peillon, Sospel, Luceram, and just north of La Brigue, almost to Italy, is a wonderful church with 15th century frescoes. I made this trip once and barely saw a tourist. Peillon is forever boutique free so there's not much reason for tourists to go there except the hotel and restaurant, church and the small chapel with frescoes (same artist as the church north of La Brigue). Also, it's very difficult to find Peillon but it is a lovely place nevertheless. You will need a car for this trip.

Accessible by train:

Near Venice you should look at Treviso and Verona

Near Firenze you should look at Ferrara and Lucca

Near Rome you should look at Orvieto and Ostia Antica (not just the ruins, but the castle in Ostia Antica).

luckytotravel,

>> train from Paris to Lusanne then to milan(no stop) to Venice for three days then to florence and rome with possible day trips or the provence region of France with possible castle visit and then to cinque terre and then to rome.

I don't think you would enjoy doing all of the above in only two weeks' time. You would be spending most of your time in transit on the train or in the car and definitely not going to 'experience the culture of the every day European lifestyle.'

Plus, none of those cities you mentioned above are 'non-touristy quaint towns'.

I reiterate my thoughts to you on getting some guide books and reading them first before coming to this forum.

We actually have 19 days, and I do want my daughters to experience a few of the more famous sites in Rome and Florence. The rest is open, We were thinking two nights in Paris with possibly an evening train trip heading south. This is the iffy part, do we go thru Lusanne to Milan to Venice for another 3 day stay or should we stop along that route some where, or would it be more interesting to take the train from Paris and go south to Avignon stopping at ? for a couple of days and then on to Italy? Would you skip Florence and visit cinque terre and venice then spend the last two days in Rome or considering that some of the small villages that have already been suggested:
Kandestag CH--see the Alps(where is this?)
Stresa--on Lago Maggiore
Levanto---nice beach town next to CT
Lucca---mid-size Tuscan city
Orvieto--if you have time
These sound a little more our style. How locked in do you think we need to be with lodging as far as exact dates. Do any of these places have convents that offer lodging? Or B&B's

Buy the Michelin Greeen guides for France, Switzerland[CH] and Italy and come back when you have a better idea of your trip objectives. I think you are envisoning a travel style from 30 years ago. It will be very hard to find real off-the path destinations wihtout a car. Even the places I suggested are popular tourist destinations, but at least on a rail line.
Here is another rough itinerary:
Paris
Avignon
Villefranche sur Mare
Levanto
Lucca
Orvieto
Rome
The more you read the more ideas you will have.