newelle

I am planning a 7 day trip with my pre-retirement age parents who are both fluent in French and have wanted to go to Europe their entire lives. We are flying into Britain then we plan on going to France before flying back to the states. Does any one have any intinerary suggestions

Neopolitan

I'm a little confused. The whole trip is seven days and part of it is in Britain, or you're only changing planes there?
How many actual nights do you have to spend in France?

Why do they want to go to France? That should be the main question before deciding where in France to go. The obvious answer for most people is Paris, and if you only have four or five nights to spend in France, probably all of them should be in Paris with a day trip to Versailles.

janisj

you need to give us a <b>LOT</b> more info before anyone can give you even the tiniest bit of useful advice.

Seven days is really nothing - it is a 1-city or at most 2-city trip. But it really isn't long enough to see more than one city and maybe a day trip into the countryside.

1) does the 7 days include your flight to/from Europe? If 7 days is the whole trip you will only have 5 days &quot;on the ground&quot; so definitely only a 1-city trip.

2) what sorts of things do you want to see/enjoy doing?

3) what airport are you flying into in the UK? And what airport are you flying home from?

4) do you plan on doing anything in the UK? or just transit through?

5) If it is just transit through -- then why the UK at all?

6) If France is the only place you want to visit - then fly into France.

WallyKringen

Add another week at least - by the time your parents have adjusted to the time difference and recovered from the sleep deprivation, it will be time to go home again. If this is their first trip across the pond, then let them see something and have the time to let the memories and impressions sink in. To come this far for what is barely a blitz visit &agrave; la harried businessman makes little sense.

newelle

We will be spending a total of 6 days in Europe. We are heading into Heathrow airport where we will be visiting family for a day then head to Paris from where we will ultimately be heading back from CDG. My parents rarely travel alone, esp to foreign countries. My schedule unfortunately is limited and so, I really only have 6 days for some sightseeing. My parents enjoy good food, museums and sights of religious significance (they're Catholic).
The day trip to Versailles sounds interesting. How do we set that up once there.

laurie_ann

I did the same with my parent (well not through London but directly to Paris) for one week two years ago. We had a great trip. You might track down my posts but we had an 2-bedroom apartment which was a great way to spend time together and yet have some private space too. We took a day trip to Normandy as I wanted to show my parents something out of the big city and knew my Dad would especially like D-Day sights. You will not regret that you planned this with your parents.

janisj

Versailles is actually on the outskirts of Paris so you can just go there on public transport, or you can take a tour bus - but you don't have to arrange that ahead of time.

But you do need a bit of a reality check. I assume the 6 days includes your last day in Paris. Well you can't do anything that day since you need 4 or 5 or more hours to pack, travel to CDG and checkin/get through security. So you are down to 5 days. Then 1+ day willl have been spent visiting relatives (where do they live? - it makes a difference re the best way to get to Paris)

So you'll really have less than 4 full days in Paris. (If you fly or take the Eurostar even if you go REALLY early in the morning, you won't be to your Paris hotel and checked until 10:00 a.m. or later.)

So don't decide about taking most of a day to go to Versailles and back untill you are in Paris. There is so much to see and do you probably won't have time for Versailles. Heck - just Notre Dame, Ste Chapelle and a few of the major museums is more that 4 days worth.

newelle

thanks for the input
This will be my first trip to Europe with my parents so I'll get to gauge how they manage the 4 days away from home.
Has anyone ever been to Lourdes, France??

Underhill

Lourdes is quite some distance south of Paris and would require at least a full day, including travel time. A sample train itinerary would have you leaving Paris at 7:45 and not arriving in Lourdes until 1:40. The return trip would take about the same amount of time.

As there are any number of Catholic sites in Paris (the cathedrals of Notre-Dame and St-Sulpice, the Basilica of St-Denis, and the Sainte-Chapelle, to name only a few) you might want to skip Lourdes this time around. Instead you could take a half-hour train trip to see the magnificent cathedral of Chartres.

nessundorma

I have been to Lourdes and I would make a conservative guess that hospitals outnumber hotels 3 to 1. I had quite negative feelings about the town and its air of commercial tourism built around all this suffering.

But I have to say, newelle, that most people younger than 65 have no trouble whatsoever handling a week's trip to London and Paris. And if your parents are more focused on sites of religious significance than hitting all the museums and hedonistic pleasures of Paris, I don't think this has to be a hectic or disorienting trip, especially if your parents are both fluent French speakers.

By the way, my impressions of France have always been that it is not a particularly religious culture. There are beautiful churches everywhere, but not a lot of people going in them to pray.

bilboburgler

I guess there is religion and religious buildings. St PAuls in London and Notre Dame in Paris are uplifiting in their design and the religious history. Sacre Coeur (sp) is just a tomb to Napoleon and very attractive.

I suggest have a look at sncf.fr and surf some train web sites as you may find the ring road around Paris a bit of a nightmare while central parking is tough.

Once you chose Trains then the world opens up a bit. What about the chataux of the Loire, or Champagne or Burgundy wine trips. I bet there is a good web site on abbeys in France (some great ones near Chablis)

bilboburgler

There you go

http://www.paradoxplace.com/Photo%20...Cathedrals.htm

clairobscur

Sacre-Coeur has nothing to do with Napoleon (it was build 70 years later) and certainly isn't his tomb.

On the other hand, its architecture is reminiscent of the Lourdes Basilica, build roughly during the same timeframe. And I second *bilboburgler* negative comment about the commercial athmosphere in Lourdes. It might certainly be uplifting to be there for a catholic (I say that as a lapsed catholic) but it certainly also has a &quot;merchants of the temple&quot; air to it (and I say that as an atheist). More importantly, as already mentionned, it's a rather long trip for a short stay in France, especially since if one is going there for religious reasons, I'm sure one would want to stay more than half a day (visiting the miraculous cave, attending a mass at the Basilica, etc...).

I would mention there's a small chapel in Paris, rue du Bac if I'm not mistaken, that seems to attract a large crowd of catholic visitors. It's name is something like &quot;chapel of the miraculous medal&quot;, I don't reember exactly. Probably some other poster will be able to fill in.

Obviously, a catholic might want to attend a major mass in Notre-Dame. Besides that, I'm not sure what monument of religious signifiance one could visit in Paris. I wouldn't include The St-Denis Basilica in the list, since its main purpose is to be the burial place of the former french kings. I don't even think it's still used as a religious building, though I might be mistaken. Of course, any historical church (St-Germain, the Sainte Chapelle, Saint Eustache, whatever...) could be considered a building of religious signifiance, and there's no lack of them. Same with Chartres Cathedral, though personnally I tend to view it more as a (magnificent) monument than as a religious building.

While we're at it, the Mont St-Michel is one of the most important monument in France (if not *the* most important) and also a place at least formerly of major religious significance since it used to be a major pilgrimage (but no longer is). Of course, this also implies taking a full day (and a relatively hurried one at that) out of an already short stay. Also someone mentionned the Loire valley, and besides the chateaux, there are also some abbeys in this area in particular Saint Benoit, near Orleans.

As for museums, you should give some more details about the kind of &quot;stuff&quot; your parents might be interested in.

Alec

Here is a link, in French, to the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal of St Catherine Labour&eacute;: http://www.chapellenotredamedelameda...e.com/FR/a.asp
St Etienne du Mont (in 5th Arr. near Pantheon) has a reliquary of St Genevieve, patron of Paris.
Sacre-Coeur, which commemorates the consecration of France to the Sacred Heart, has had perpetual exposition of the Blessed Sacrament since 1885.