Paris Vacation - Add Side Trip off Paris?
 

I will travel to Paris for 8 full days in mid March. Would like to hear recommendation on side trips. First choice is Provence, but believe it's not the right season and time would be too short for both places (given the distance also). I prefer this trip a leisure one and not a very packed schedule.

Is Champagned area - Reims & Epernay a good choice? It's ~1.5 hr by train from Paris. What is best duration for the trip? Should I stay overnight? What to see and do particularly?

Would love to hear suggestions on other areas as well.

Thanks.

take the train to the palace of versailles. it so amazing. only about 1 hour train ride. but you will spend a good portion of the day there. Go early!

I've visited the Versailles 10 yrs ago, so looking forward to see other places.

ttt -- I have the same question.

We went to Fountainbleau and Vaux le Compte as a day trip. The shuttle between the two was not available at the time so the trip involved a train, bus, and taxi but was well worth it.

Just piling on. I'll be in Paris in late March for 5 days starting on the 23rd. I've been to Versailles twice, loved it, but like the OP would like to go somewhere else. Would love to go to Vaux but would prefer to save that for a warmer weather trip. Chantilly, Malmaison, Rouen, perhap Lyon. I've got some reading/research to do to help me decide. Now I'll add Reims to my wish list.

No one else weighed in, so I will -- yes, I think Reims is a great day trip from Paris and I've done it myself. The train trip isn't very long (about 90 min), and there is plenty to see and do in the city. They have several excellent museums, the famous cathedral (with some beautiful stained glass windows by Chagall), and generally it's a pleasant city to walk around. I really enjoyed the Recapitulation Museum which was Eisenhower's headquarters and where the Germans surrendered. They have the actual map room still set up just like it was, and a really nice historical film of some footage I've never seen before.

IN addition, there are several champagne houses you can tour, although I didn't have time for that and it wasn't so important to me. But a lot of folks enjoy that -- I think Indytravel made a great report on his trip to Reims on this forum, maybe you can find it. He talks about some champagne caves he visited.

Hi,
I've also done a day trip to Reims. We went up late morning and came back at dinner time. Our goal was to see cathedral and champagne cellar. I went in January, so even though I could see the hills and vineyards, greenery was at a minimum. Easy walk from train station to cathedral. You will pass some roman ruins.
Cathedral is a must visit! Outside of it is the tourist bureau, and across the street a good store for buying champagne. From the front of the cathedral if you walk straight down a couple of blocks there is a pedestrian street with many restaurants. We visited the Taittinger cellars, which are about a 15-20 minute walk from the cathedalr (left on main street as you walk away from front of cathedral). I enjoyed their cellars, they have built them under the ruins of a demolished abbey, so there are still some remnants of the abbey, as well as some early roman quarrying. Interesting tour, nice sampling, and a store at the end selling bubbly as well as company items. We took a cab back to the train station (the reception called it for us). Hope this helps,
Mike

Hi S,

Dijon is a nice overnight.

Auxerre and Troyes are nice daytrips.

((I))

You cannot really lose on any of these.
Pick the one that appeals to you the most.

The Vaux le Vicomte and Fontainebleau combination is the one day organized bus tour that I took which met all of my expectations.

Unfortunately, Vaux does not open until March 25. If you are there on the 15th for 8 full days, you will leave before it opens.

I found that an early arrival at Versailles did us little good in early September. We got there before the palace opened, bought our tickets and were among the first dozen or so to enter.

The tour bus mobs came in shortly after it opened and by the time I got to the king's bed chamber, the place was packed. Hopefully there will be less demand for tickets when you are there.

I think anyone who has an interest in French history needs to see Versailles and Fontainebleau because of the fact that Versailles was the residence of French kings and Versailles was a royal hunting lodge and later the residence of Napoleon.

Vaux is more remarkable for its beautiful interfacing of engineering, architecture, painting and decoration and landscape architecture than any of the other buildidngs. A fantantistic integration of the arts in all categories.

Afterall the 3 principals in the construction of Vaux were the designers, architects, and creators of Versailles.