My wife and I are planning a 10 day trip (this includes travel days) from Chicago and are considering going to France. We spent 4 days in Paris 10 years ago and did all of the "tourist" stuff but we both loved the city and would like to go there at least for a couple of days. Any suggestions on what to do in addition to Paris given our available time? We are going to be taking this trip sometime in October. Figuring one full day for travel to get there and one full day back that leaves us with about 8 days to work with. Figuring 2-3 days for Paris that leaves us with 5-6 days for something else.

We were considering two primary options:
1. Paris for 2 or 3 days + the Loire Valley
2. Paris for 2 or 3 days + the French Riviera

Any suggestions on an itinerary for these two options? We'd love to try staying in a Chateau. Our budget, outside of the flight, is around $3k for both of us but I'd love to keep it closer to $2k if possible.

Also, should I expect to use trains and buses for travel with either of these options?

Thanks very much in advance for any and all advice

I haven't been yet as our trip is planned for May, but in researching many prior threads to help us decide where we wanted to spend five days before our week in Paris, we decided on Provence. Just one more option to think about!

Awesome, thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely tack that on as option 3

Hi Blue,

> Figuring one full day for travel to get there and one full day back that leaves us with about 8 days to work with...<

Sounds like an excellent visit to Paris.

Take a train to Strasbourg and return and another to Dijon or Auxerre and return if you got jaded with Paris.

Enjoy your visit.

Thanks for the replies. We opted to go to the Amalfi coast instead of Paris and its outlying regions. We will be back to Paris in the future