Paris Alone or A few Extra Days, And Where?
 

We have an apartment rented in Paris for 10 nights in March. We can fly in and out of London and add a few nights there, take a few day trips out of Paris or perhaps take an over night jaunt to Bruges.
It's been 8 years since we've visited London and we've never been to Bruges.
Although we've loved touring both the French and British countryside it doesn't seem like the weather for that.
I'm a little concerned about adding the additional expense of days in London, even with the devalued pound. And moving from point A to B always eats up a day of vacation.
Any great and exciting ideas?
Help!

Bruges would be a nice change of pace and scenery.

Hi W,

>I'm a little concerned about adding the additional expense ....<

You can do both Bruges and London as daytrips.

You can also visit Nancy, Strasbourg, Auxerre, Chartres for a day.

((I))

How long will you have in total for your trip?

I think it would be reasonable to book open-jaw flights that were into London and out of Brussels, or vice versa.

Then you could spend a couple days in London, take the Eurostar to Paris, and at the end of your trip, take the train to Belgium.

I think if you have the time, why do London as a daytrip. You'd see much more with even a couple nights. And it's quite possible to do London cheaply.

Once you have examined the various options, you can wait until you are there to decide what to do, depending on the weather. March is a month where advance reservations are not required out of the capital cities.

The only drawback with waiting is not getting cheap train tickets, which you can do if you book ahead. For certain daytrips, such as Chartres, there are no discounts, but for London or Bruges, there are.

I have to determine how long I'll be in Europe prior to purchasing my plane tickets (well, one ticket- the other is available with miles). This will also dictate my arrival and departure cities.
I can take the time off, but each additional day is an expense.
My original thought had been to spend a week in London and ten nights in Paris.
Then, of course, I began to think of all I'd miss in the English countryside and was back to perhaps just Paris this trip to make it a little less expensive and another future trip to only the UK.
That's when Bruges, a city I haven't visited, came into the picture. With 10 nights in Paris I suppose I could manage 1 or 2 long day trips.
Sigh.
I'd love to be spontaneous but an apartment prohibits that. I am looking forward to the extra "leg room" and in-house eating it affords, however!

If it would add enjoyment to your trip to stay overnight in a place or two, might it not be worth it to do that? Just because you have the apartment does not mean you have to be there every night.

>Just because you have the apartment does not mean you have to be there every night.<

But it does mean that you have to pay for it every night. :)

((I))

This is my issue. I don't want to pay to stay in two places!
Perhaps if I were independently wealthy... but then I'd just own that apartment in Paris!

there are so many day trips you can take from Paris ( an hour or two) by train, I would not worry about staying overnight.

After some research this weekend, I came up with a completely different thought. Maybe it was two cities that was stalling me.
We've only spent a few days in Spain, in Barcelona. I'm thinking after Paris we might fly south to Andalucia and rent a car to tour. Of course this is far from the least expensive option but the area looks gorgeous and and the end of March seems the right time to go!