Need help planning day trips from Paris
 

I have been researching train fares to and from Giverny or Chartres and Paris. On the SNCF website the round trip fare to each place is about $60-65 usd. Ouch! Then I wondered if they were within the Carte Orange/Navigo Decouverte zones- I'd just purchase more zones on the pass. Does anyone here have experience with this?

I just took a look for r/t to Chartres. Each portion is 12,90€, so r/t is 25,80€.

Using 1€=$1.58
The r/t fare to Chartres should be $40.764.

Are you looking at 1st class or 2nd class? above prices are for 2nd class.

BTW, the ticket price to Vernon (for Giverny) is even cheaper at 11,90 € each way. Are you looking at the French website of SNCF or are you being directed to RailEurope.com?

I think it was Rail Europe.
Are Chartres and Vernon within the Carte Orange zones? If so that is the least expensive solution.
I'll look for SNCF.fr
Thanks!

No, both Vernon and Chartres are beyond zone 6, the outermost zone.

Some of the day trips I took from Paris, I went with Paris
Visions (a tour company) to Giverney and Monet gardens, I took the train on my own to Beaune and Dijon and took a small tour in a van with 4 people to the Loire valley and visited the chateaus. I also bought the weekly metro ticket and each day visited a different arrondisement and walked the whole area. Have fun!

Chantilly and Senlis are a great 1-2 day(s) trip. We took the train to Chantilly (1/2 hour from Paris), toured and then took the bus to Senlis (25 minutes). We walked from the train to the chateau and The Living Museum of the Horse and the bus stopped in front of that museum to go on to Senlis. Great excursion!

We just went to Chartres today. The train from Gare Monparnasse was 25 Euros round trip; it took about an hour. NB that there is scaffolding on part of the cathedral, and a window or two is blocked....but there are so many gorgeous windows to see that it didn't make much of a difference.

For a long day, how about London? I just did that. Arrived at 9:30AM their time and got back to Paris around 11:30PM on the Eurostar.