.My wife and I have one day to visit the D Day beaches from Paris. Our question is -- do we take a tour from Paris with a company such as Paris Vision, Normandy D Day or Cityrama, or do it ourselves, taking the train to Bayeux and then finding a tour operator there? The tours from Paris run from $250-340/person.

Does anyone have a recommendation as to which would be a better experience, taking into account that we want to start and finish in Paris in one day?

If you are comfortable driving in Europe and ready for a long day, do your homework and drive. You will see and get more done with a tour howeve, it just won't seem quite as special.

My husband and I did a one day trip a few years ago through one of the tour companies and it was the highlight of our trip! I don't remember which company we used.
We paid about 100 euros each (that was about 4 or 5 years ago.
We were on a van with only about 7 other people (all Americans) and driver spoke excellent English.

We did a one day tour from Paris with Paris-trip.com and I have to agree that it was the highlight of our trip. I looked into taking a train and getting a tour from there, but there were some logistical issues with getting a train so early, etc. It is a bit expensive, but completely worth it.

If you check out the cost of renting a car for just one day, you'll ignore Jeff-Portnoy's advice - it's generally the same as renting one for 3 days, and once you add gas and tolls (if applicable - would have to check the routes), you'd be paying as much as for a guided tour or more. I would probably opt for a guided tour, if it included the Mémorial in Caen, or taking the train to Caen and hooking up with a day-long tour there (I believe the Mémorial museum does them, but not positive).

I haven't done it but look up Battlebus tours. They are supposed to be very good for the Normandy Beaches and originate in Paris. I learned about them off of this website. Let me know what you find out. We are interested in doing the same thing late Sept.

Paris-trip..............that was who we went through!

We are looking to do the exact same thing (with our 2 teenagers) one day next week and the advice we got from friends in Paris was, whether we used a tour company or did a self-tour, that the train was much faster to get to Normandy than a tour bus (2.5 hours each way vs over 4). So our plan is to either take the train ourselves and hook up with a tour in Normandy that originates and returns to the train station or to book a tour that includes the train fare from Paris to Normandy and back. Any comments or experience with this?

We looked into doing this semi on our own two years' ago, train to Caen then hooking up with one of the half-day tours to the beaches run by the Memorial Museum in Caen, www.memorial-caen.fr

We ran out of time and as I had already seen the museum, which is excellent, beaches and US cemetery, husband decided to go another time. I highly recommend the museum, well everything is, of course, fascinating and/or moving.

This would make for a long-ish day but no longer than by coach and I expect the lowest cost option.

Istamu - Your information about Battlebus is incorrect. Battlebus used to run tours that originated in Bayeux, but they went out of business last November.