paris, etc itinerary
 

I am planning a trip to Paris in the beginning of June. Will be in Paris for four days and have a total of 12 vacation days. What other countries/cities outside of France would you recommend. I would like to be in centrally located cities, so I don't have to change hotels every other night. My husband and I enjoy museums, but like beautiful scenery, good food, and like to walk and/or hike.

This is a very broad question. My way of approaching your situation would be to try to find two other cities that sound good to you that you can fly to one budget airlines.

From Paris Orly, for instance, whichbudget.com shows that you can fly to Vienna, Copenhagen, Berlin, etc. I'd pick one to spend 4 days in, then go back to whichbudget.com and see which other large cities you can fly to from the city you pick to fly to from Paris.

If this was my first visit I,d spend the whole time in Paris and never run out of things to do. We are on our 27th visit this year and will spend 3 weeks . You can do many day trips within 1 hour of Paris. You can hike around nearby chateaus, visit medieval cities , visit more museums than your eyes will be able to accommodate

Have you ever been to Europe before? Largely, this is your personal interest and taste, as well as some logistics, of course. If this were a first visit, I definitely would not recommend you spend all that time in Paris. I wouldn't want to do that myself. If you have all of Europe to see, I wouldn't want to do that.

London would be a natural, as well as Amsterdam, both easy to get to. If you like to hike, I might also suggest combining Paris with Switzerland, as you can get the fast train between them in only a couple hours. I did that a couple years ago -- flew into Zurich, spent about a week in Switzerland and then the TGV to Paris (from Montreux, I guess, or maybe Lausanne, I forget) to finish my stay and flew hope from Paris. That was a very nice trip and Switzerland is beautiful and a very pleasant place to travel.

If you do two cities, make sure to use Open Jaw for your flights. Between cities, use high speed train (e.g. London, Paris, Amsterdam,etc..)

You could do two cities, with a city/country blend. Hotel in city, but do a day trip into countryside.

Note..do you really have twelve days? I tend to see landing day as 1/2 gone in order to get chekced into hotle + jetlag. last day, checking-out and getting to hotel uses a chunk of that day. So just a reminder when calculating days in a city.

Most big cities in Europe do have a lot to offer, but since you mentioned hiking...Some people here have reocmmended the Dordogne as a nice place to spend time in. Mountains, rivers, hiking, canoeing,etc..and lots of old castles.

Paris/Italy (Rome, Lake District, Cinque Terre...) could be another combo. Both countries seem to have a good reputation for food :)

I'll chime in with my thoughts: I'd probably not spend all the days in Paris, but I would stay within France with just that amount of time. A non-large city experience might be fun after Paris, such as Normandy, Alsace, Burgundy, or Provence (around Avignon, Arles, etc.). Any of those areas can easily be reached by train and IMO, would make a very nice trip.

We have visited Paris 3 times for a total of 38 days ~ we have yet to get out of Paris even for a day trip and we find we haven't scratched the surface. I am going back twice this year ~ 4 days with my daughter in May and 17 days with my hubby in the fall. There is so much to see and do and we like not having to pack, move and unpack during our trips. There are lots of day trips you'd be able to take that would allow you to visit other areas but still come back to a home base.

Happy planning.

JO

There are several ways to go, and they can all be fun.

You could spend half the vacation in Paris and then fly to another city such as Rome, Venice, Barcelona, Lisbon, anywhere. I have taken several vacations that combined two cities in different countries and like the contrast of language, food, and culture. You fly in to one city and back from the other one, open jaws, to avoid backtracking.

You could spend half the time in Paris and half the time in the countryside either in France or another country, where you are more likely to find scenery and hiking.

You could spend the whole time in Paris, although I wouldn't. There is certainly enough of interest to keep you happy there, and I have gone to Paris for up to two weeks at a time. But it sounds like you want more variety, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I would not try to go to more than two destinations for the kind of trip you are describing.