Hello everyone: I'm planning a first time itinerary to Provence and the Nice area (after starting in Paris for 5 days) then on to Switzerland. I have 16 days in Provence and the Nice area and then will train to Switzerland for 1 week.

I will arrive in Provence from Paris and then fly out of Switzerland from Zurich, other than that I have no limitation on how I do the trip. What is the best order and combo of train and car?

It seems like Avignon is a great way to get to Switzerland, so should I do Nice first after Paris and back track through Provence?

Thanks for any suggestions!
Annealex

To begin with - at what time of the year is this taking place? Makes a huge difference.

By train, Avignon has pretty good connections (via Lyon) to Geneva (French=speaking Switzerland) and then the rest of Switzerland. From Nice it takes a bunch longer. Where in Switzerland do you wish to begin, or be situated for the duration?

You could also go from Nice to Milan and then into Switzerland via the southern part of Switzerland, called Ticino, where the language is Italian. It's not a quick trip, but you're on vacation...

Another way, very scenic, would be via the Italian/French Alps, Aosta into Switzerland by the Mont Blanc, down to Martigny - a great ride.

You need to tell us a lot more before we can make sensible suggestions. When, how, where to, what are your plans and preferences (Cities? Alpine hikes? Exploring one region or hopping from one to another? Etc. etc.).

Thanks Michel,
This is a Spring trip (2014) starting in April ending in early May -- so we'll be in Switzerland early May. The only idea in Switzerland thus far is the last 2 days in Zurich for my husband's birthday. We have heard good things about Lake Lucerne and maybe Jungfraujoch? We're open to overall scenery, some hiking, history/architecture. Thanks, Annealex

There are fast direct TGV trains from both, Nice and Avignon to Switzerland. Easyjet has cheap flights from Nice to Geneva and to Basel.
The most scenic itinerary however goes from Nice through the Alps:
Train: Nice - Ventimiglia or Sospel - Breil - Tenda - Limone - Cuneo - Turin - Aosta (Fare around 30 EUR)
Bus: Aosta - Martigny/Switzerland (Fare 28 EUR)
Train: Martigny - Visp (Zermatt/Matterhorn)- Spiez (Interlaken/Jungfrau)- Berne or Lucerne - Zurich
resp. Martigny - Lake Geneva/Montreux/Chillon castle - Golden Pass (Gruyeres castle) - Spiez ....

You may also enter Switzerland by boat: train from Turin to Novara - Oleggio - Arona and Lake Maggiore boat from Arona to Locarno (Switzerland).

You may have a look at
http://www.myswitzerland.com/en/home.html
http://www.swisstravelsystem.ch/en/
http://fahrplan.sbb.ch/bin/query.exe/en

consider taking the TGV bullet train to Nice and rent your car there - takes about 25 hours only vs an all-day drive with very steep tolls and petro prices of course - pick up car at TGV station and putz around the Riviera and drive inland via the Gorges du Verdon and a backwater area of Provence to Aix-en-Provence - lovely base for a few days - Cezanne's stomping grounds

then move onto the Avignon area with so so much to see and do - Avignon, Arles, the Pont du Gard, Uzes, Nimes, Chateauneuf-les-Papes and its wineries, the Camarge, etc.

Then drive via Lyon and Burgudny to Geneva, returning your car there - if a steep dropoff charge then across the border in France.

And take the train - if traveling around much check out a Swiss Pass or Swiss Card or Half-Fare Pass - great sources of info on Swiss trains - www.swisstravelsystem.com; www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.seat61.com. Passes cover not only trains but lake boats, postal buses, city trams and buses and yield free entry to 400+ Swiss museums if any of those are in your mix.

to me the Interlaken-Grindelwald-Lauterbrunnen area - the Jungfrau Region is the highlight of Switzerland if you've never been there - the glacier-girdled Switzerland you may be dreaming of but will not find in Geneva or cities.

Thanks for links and ideas. I'm checking into all these suggestions. I assume Palen means 2.5 hour bullet train from Paris. Lots of reading ahead.

No I meant 2.5 hours to Avignon TGV and then thought I changed it to 5 hours or so to Nice. There is also an overnight Paris to Nice train.

"There is also an overnight Paris to Nice train."

Unfortunately, this train is no longer daily and it has no sleeping cars (only couchettes).

that Paris to Nice night train has for at least a few decades never had sleeping cars but just 4-person and 6-person compartments IME - so I guess if you cannot cotton sleeping in the same compartment with strangers it's a no go - but I've taken that train many times and always found my compartment mates nice folk.

The itinerary is shaping up like this: Paris 5 days. (We've been to Paris before and know it quite well.) Then we'll explore new territory: train to Nice and visit for a 3-4 days including Eze, drive through Provence and we'd like to visit Provence for a leisure 2 weeks, maybe staying in 4 different places, ending in Avignon for a train to Geneva and on to the Gindewald-Lauterbrunnen area before heading to Lake Lucerne and then to Zurich. We have a week in Switzerland. It will be early May there and we're looking for scenery, history and hiking. I'm not a skiing fan.

Our next challenge is finding affordable places to stay. $100-$175 a night if possible. We're looking into airbnb for Paris. We're also travelling light and will need to wash clothes along the way. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks! Annealex

Instead of taking the train to Geneva from Avignon it is a nice drive there thru Burgundy - along the Route des vignobles bourgogne - the marked Burgundy Wine Road that meanders from the Lyon area to Beaune - a nice smaller city to stay in and Dijon -

passing thru such bucolic scenery as:

https://www.google.com/search?q=rout...=1600&bih=1074

another route to Switzerland from France is to take a train to Chamonix - a narrow-gauge scenic train ride to this primo Alpine resort - or you could drive there and ditch the car there and then take a dramatically scenic train down into Switzerland - to Martigny - in the Rhone Valley and not far from either Zermatt, Lake Geneva or the Interlaken area.

If you have a Swiss Pass it would cover the French portion of the train from Chamonix to Martigny and of course all the way anywhere in Switzerland.

Lots of good ideas have come forth since you replied to my initial query about your plans. In case you're tempted to drive yourselves - note that many mountain passes are still closed in late April and even in May.

I suggest you seriously consider the route from Nice through Italy, either taking the Aosta-Mont-Blanc-region-to-Martigny route (high-alpine and snowy) or the subtropical (well, for Europe...) route via the Lago Maggiore, that long lake that hangs down from Switzerland into Italy.

On that lake, a stop on the fast train route from Milan to Brig is Stresa, and it would make for a lovely and romantic Spring sojourn, with visits to the Borromean Islands where flowers begin to bloom at that time - see www.stresa.com/borromeanislands

Then you take a train north and you arrive in Switzerland at the northern end of the Simplon tunnel, in Brig, right where you need to be to change to the mountain train that takes you up to the incomparable Zermatt with the Matterhorn. While there, go up to the Gornergrat (or splurge on staying up there!) for the be views!

A lot to consider. We are not good driving on snowy roads since we were raised in Florida!
One of the key consideration is the order of the trip. Paris and Zurich are locked in as start and end points. If we take your suggestion, Michel, through Nice and Italy that means we do Provence first. We would chose the Mont Blanc approach since we've been to the gorgeous Lake Como area and figure Lake Maggiore would be similar. Or we could do Nice first from Paris and backtrack through Provence and head over to the Vignobles Bourgogne as Palen suggests and train somewhere on the French side where we drop off the car. All sounds fantastic. We love great scenery and wine, art, villages and a slow pace. This is the longest trip of our lIves!

And here's another wrinkle, just to confuse you some more: Consider driving from Paris to Lyon with stops in such places as Vézelay, the Burgundy region (definitely Beaune, possibly Autun, maybe historic Cluny) return the car in Lyon and hop on a fast train, or keep driving since you're more than halfway there...

If you keep the car, don't ignore the Haute-Provence, entirely different from the seaside locations - look at places like Gordes in the Vaucluse region, also Sisteron, the dramatic rocks at Les Mées and Castellane, river gorges, wild nature sights - well worth a detour on your way from Paris to the South, a night or two!

We are saving two weeks for Provence either after or before Nice -- I think I got that area covered. It's the transition to Switzerland that I'm researching. I appreciate all your ideas!

There are cheap flights from Nice to Geneva. I traveled to and from Nice on Easy Jet in 2013.