Hey there! My husband and I are planning a 10 day trip to Paris for late this summer. We are interested in combining 3 different aspects to our trip (1) Normandy (2) Champagne and (3) Paris. Please let me know if you seasoned francophiles find our itinerary completely un-doable. We don't mind being kind of busy in the beginning, because we want to fit it all in rather than give up something that we may never see again! Thanks in advance for your review!

Day 1: Arrive in Paris early A.M. Rent car and drive to Bayeux. See the tapestry and whatever else we can fit into the day.

Day 2: D-Day Beaches and Memorials.

Day 3: Drive to and stay the night at Mont St. Michel.

Day 4: Drive 5 hours to Reims. Taste Champagne, eat, rest.

Day 5: Drive through vinyards in Reims and Epernay. More eating, drinking, etc.

Day 6: Drive to CDG and drop off rental car. Take Train into the city.

Day 7-9: 3 more full days in Paris.

Day 10: Fly home to USA!

I probably should also add the hubby and I have both spent time before in Paris and other portions of France. Neither of us have been to Normandy or Champagne.

That really sounds just fine, and since you've already been to Paris before, you done necessarily need more than three days there. I did a trip taking in the Bayeux tapestry, the beaches and Mont-Saint Michel in just a weekend quite easily, so you actually don't seem to be trying to fit too much into the first few days.

Seeing the tapestry doesn't take very long, but as you'll probably be pretty tired, you might not get much else done that day. Where are you planning to spend the first night?

Spending the night at Mont St-Michel sounds delightfully romantic, as the place teems with daytrippers during the sunlight hours.

Hi T,

Sounds good to me.

Look forward to your trip report.

Day 4 will be a full one, as you know. Michelin suggests the driving time from Mont St. Michel to Reims is five and and a half hours, rather than five. Are you planning to tour the basilica on the Mont first thing on Day 4, or in the afternoon of Day 3? The former would be better, I think, less crowded.

Felly, We are thinking about staying at Les Ramparts in Bayeux - we've heard it is good and affordable.

We are also thinking of staying at the Grand Hotel Continental in Reims (not sure if any of you are familiar with that).

Any hotel, dining, attraction or tour tips are always greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Tresura

IMO, you can't "do" the D-Day beaches and memorials in one day. The Mémorial museum in Caen kept us mesmerized for close to 4 hours alone, and then there are all the beaches, Ste-Mère-Eglise, the museum at Arromanches, stops for lunch and drinks, etc.

And that's a long haul from le Mont-St-Michel to Reims.

Personally, though I agree this is do-able, it seems at least one day short of the time actually needed to do it justice.

Hi, just back from Reims yesterday. If you want to look round the champagne houses and caves do book ahead to see when the English tours start. We went to MUMM and it was fantastic and very interesting. It took us 2 hours to get back to CDG airport

While the Caen Peace Memorial museum is great, it's best to skip it, I think, given just one day for Battle of Normandy visits, and concentrate on the "terrain." Book a one-day premier tour of the beaches and associated sites, with Battlebus or Victory tours.

We stayed at a great place in Normandy this past summer. Chateau Isle-Marie. If you do a search on tripadvisor.com for Bayeux, it will come up under B&B's. The place was magical, the hosts great and they had an owners' dinner each night in the barn that was delightful.

Simon and Dorethea (the owners) arranged a wonderful tour guide of the d-day sites. On our second day, we also visited the dead man's corner museum which I highly recommend.

If there is a long line to see the tapestry, skip the introductory exhibit and go directly to the tapestry. Be sure to get an audio-guide. We did that and it made the experience much more enjoyable. The line for the introductory exhibit was enormous and the audio-guide did a very good job of filling in information while we looked at the tapestry.

Wow, you guys - thanks! This is all so helpful. I few more questions.

I have heard the museum in Caen is really amazing, but I think that we may not have enough time to see it. Are we doing ourselves a terrible injustice, or do you think a really amazing tour guide (we are thinking Battlebus Tours) will be able to fill us in on at least some of the information we would miss by not making it to the Museum in Caen?

I read that there is a museum in Bayeux and also a small museum re: WWII in Reims. We could likely get to these without any trouble. Does anyone have any information about these museums?

When I visited Normandy in 2005, we used a wonderful guide, Danielle. www.normandyours.com. She picked us up at our Bayeau hotel, and drove our car for the day. It only cost us about 50 Euros more that if we had signed up for one of the "battle" tours. And we custom designed our itinery!