lenaldi

We will be staying at Tiara Château Hotel Mont Royal Chantilly,1/2 hour from Paris for 6 days with a car. Planing to see the city and more. Looking for suggestions on what would be the best way to visit Paris and the area. We are in our 50th, love everything and want to see as much as possible.

FrenchMystiqueTours

The first tip would be DO NOT drive into Paris. Take the train from Chantilly to Gare du Nord. Takes 25 minutes and costs 7.90 euros each way. There is loads to see not far from Chantilly.

Château of Chantilly (wonderful fairytale château, famous art collection): http://www.chateaudechantilly.com/fr/
http://www.chantilly-tourisme.com/

Senlis (small medieval town can be combined with a visit to Chantilly):
http://www.senlis-tourisme.fr/accueil-senlis.php

Reims (champagne tours, great historic cathedral, museums):
http://www.reims-tourisme.com/

Giverny (Monet's house and gardens):
http://www.fondation-monet.fr/fr/
http://giverny.org/giverny/giverny.htm
http://www.vernon-visite.org/rgb4/who_we_are.htm

Abbey of Chaalis:

http://www.chaalis.fr/

Château d'Ermenonville:

http://otsi-ermenonville.jimdo.com/l...-ermenonville/

Abbey of Royaumont:

http://www.royaumont.com/fondation_abbaye/

Compiègne (château with museums, wonderful old town. Can be combined with a visit to the château of Pierrefonds): http://www.compiegne-tourisme.fr/

Château of Pierrefonds (Magnificent fairytale looking château. Reconstructed in the 19th century but magnificent nonetheless. Can be combined with a visit to Compiègne):
http://www.pierrefonds.monuments-nationaux.fr/
http://pierrefonds-tourisme.net/ot/Bienvenue.html
http://www.compiegne-tourisme.fr/Le-...errefonds.html

Laon (medieval hilltop town with a spectacular cathedral): http://www.tourisme-paysdelaon.com/

Auvers-sur-Oise (Van Gogh and other impressionist art history):
http://www.auvers-sur-oise.com/heading/heading899.html

Crépy-en-Valois (charming medieval town):

http://www.valois-tourisme.fr/

Beauvais (famous cathedral):

http://www.beauvaistourisme.fr/

These are just a handful of the several dozen places that are all within reasonable driving distance from Chantilly. Here are a few trip reports I wrote about exploring that area that are full of photos and descriptions:

http://tinyurl.com/7edejbz

http://tinyurl.com/3wdcb4c

http://tinyurl.com/3co8u28

Get your hands on the Michelin maps. You want the ones of the scale 1:200,000 (regional maps) or 1:150,000 (departmental maps, more detailed, cover slightly less area) for whatever regions you visit. A nice feature of the 1:150,000 maps is they show the starred attractions in the corresponding Michelin Green guidebooks. The Michelin maps have icons for all kinds of historically/touristically interesting things such as châteaux, ruins, churches, abbeys, scenic view points, caves, Roman sites, megaliths, designated scenic roads and many other things. Usually when I'm exploring various regions in France I just look at the map and I am able to plan interesting and scenic drives just reading the map. For instance, I usually look for a designated scenic road, which are highlighted in green, and I especially look for towns with the historic church and/or château icon. I also try to make sure the route goes through as many small villages as possible. Usually putting all these things together I find interesting and scenic drives without even knowing where I am going and with no assistance from a guide book. Often these places are never mentioned in guidebooks and remain completely unknown to many tourists.

You can buy the Michelin maps from their website and here is a link to the page that shows all of the maps of France: http://tinyurl.com/4bt96ev

The above link takes you to the page showing the scale 1:200,000 maps but you can search the site for the 1:150,000 scale.

You need good guidebooks for whatever region in France in which you will be traveling. I like The Michelin Green Guides. If you need restaurant info then get The Michelin Red Guides, which cover restaurants.

And speaking of Michelin, you can go to the website viamichelin.com and get info on drive times and distances, toll and fuel costs and suggested routes (i.e. scenic route, fastest route etc.). The drive times given do not consider stops (fuel, food, bathrooms) nor do they consider bad weather and traffic.

Here is some other general advice for you. You should google some of the town/tourist office websites for any towns you may want to visit. You will find loads of info on these websites including hotel/accommodation and restaurant info as well as what to see and do in the area. Occasionally the websites have English versions. In doing a google search enter the name of your town followed by the words "site officiel" or "office de tourisme" and this will bring the town to the top of your search.

lenaldi

Thanks a lot! Your post is extremely helpful for our trip. Since we have the rental, I was thinking to go to Paris by car and park it somewhere (??) for the day. Only use it to/from. Would not it be cheaper than 50 euro each day with train? Also, Should I purchase maps for my GPS? I have TomTom. Not always happy with is in US. I love Michelin, used it before and will get them now as well.
Thanks again for your tips.

StCirq

Heed the advice above and do NOT drive into Paris. I don't understand how you arrive at 50 euro a day for train fare - how many of you are there? It's 7.90 euro each way per person.

Can't help with the GPS, as I never use one.

FrenchMystiqueTours

It will take you longer and cost a lot more to drive the car into Paris, or even near Paris, than it would to just take a train from Chantilly. Consider the traffic you'll encounter going to or heading back from Paris, the time lost, and the cost of fuel and parking fees.

I have never used a GPS so I have no advice for you about that. Someone else might answer that question for you but a combination of GPS and Michelin maps is probably best for most people. Myself, I plan all my vacations in France just reading the Michelin map (I don't use guidebooks) with supplemental info from tourist office websites. The icons on the maps let you know where there are interesting places to visit and scenic drives. Then, the local tourist office websites will give you much better info than you'll get in a guidebook.

FrenchMystiqueTours

And, as I mentioned in my first post and as StCirq reiterated, it is 7.90€ per person each way to/from Paris by train. So for two of you it is just under 32€ round trip.

FrenchMystiqueTours

Oops, I didn't even ask how many of you were traveling and just assumed it was two of you. Perhaps I'm wrong about that.

lenaldi

Yes, it is 2 of us. I was thinking $$, that is how I came up with 50.
Thanks to everyone. Your posts are very helpful.

TPAYT

bookmarking

nytraveler

Taking a car into Paris is a nonsense. Th eonly plce to park it is a garage - and that could well cost as much as the train when you add in gas and extra time spent sitting in traffic. Cars are fine for exploring the countryside - not large cities.

MaineGG

I agree that it is a terrible idea to drive into Paris.

Here's something that could be a possibility. You are staying just a few miles outside RER Zone 5, about 5km from RER station Survilliers-Fosses (the first station inside Zone 5) on line D1 that goes directly to the Gare du Nord.

A Navigo Découverte pass for Zones 1-5 costs €33.90 for a week (Monday-Sunday). This pass includes unlimited travel on the Metro, RER and bus systems for getting around within the city. Depending on how many days you plan to go into Paris, this could certainly be more economical. If you only need to go into Paris for one or two days, the Mobilis pass is only €14.20 for Zones 1-5 and includes unlimited travel for one day.

What I don't know is anything about the area around the Survilliers-Fosses station. Is there parking for commuters? Is it a safe area in which to leave your car for a day? This plan would require positive answers to both those questions. If not, then back to square one. Maybe FrenchMystiqueTours is familiar with this area?

annhig

we did a similar type of thing to that suggested by Maine when we wanted to do a day trip into Paris with our kids. in our case we drove to St. Germain-en-laye, parked in the underground garage next to the RER, and were at Etoile in 30 mins.

here's the wiki entry for the car park at Survillier-fosses -

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gare_de...liers_-_Fosses

it says that there is parking for 250 cars about 250 metres away from the station, which is on the RER D line.

StCirq

That's a good idea, MaineGG. I googled Survillers-Fosses and found this:

<<Accueil et équipement

Le parking-relais de la gare est éloigné de 250 m environ, situé au nord sur la D 922 près du rond-point. Il dispose de 250 places de stationnement environ, gratuites pendant toute l’année. À proximité immédiate de la gare, seules quelques places de stationnement à durée limitée avec disque de zone bleue sont disponibles.

La gare dispose d’un guichet Transilien aux heures d’ouverture suivantes :

du lundi au vendredi : de 6 h 30 à 13 h, de 13 h 30 à 15 h et de 15 h 30 à 21 h ;
les samedi, dimanches et fêtes : de 8 h 30 à 15 h et de 15 h 30 à 21 h.>>

So there's a 250-car lot on the D 22, near the roundabout, about 250 meters from the station. Parking there is free. There are also a few spaces right outside the station, but you need a Zone Blue sticker and can only use the spaces for limited amounts of time.

The rest is about hours you can buy tickets from the machines

lenaldi

MaineGG gave me a very good idea. We are staying in Chantilly Saturday to Saturday, so will be going to Paris at least 4 days that week. If I understand correctly, the weekly pass for 33.90 will give us unlimited travels on ALL PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION TO AND WITHIN THE CITY. So, from Chantilly we will drive to RER (is this a train station?) Survilliers-Fosses, park (for free) our car there, take the train and come back same way. Is there a link (English) to some info about the station? Where and how we can buy the passes? We do not speak French, unfortunately.

annhig

So, from Chantilly we will drive to RER (is this a train station?) Survilliers-Fosses, park (for free) our car there, take the train and come back same way. >>

lenaldi - if this is your plan [ie at least 4 day trips to Paris within the same week] then the navigo zones 1-5 pass does look like good value. FYI, there are two sorts of rapid transport within Paris - what might be thought of as the ordinary underground or "metro" and the "RER" which goes much further out into the suburbs, has far fewer stops, and is therefore generally much faster than the metro.

Surveilles-fosses is at the edge of Zone 5 on the RER D line, which will whiz you into Paris in no time at all. with your navigo pass, you can then transfer onto a bus or the metro [most RER stations correspond with a metro station on a different line] to get you exactly where you want to go.

Here's a link to the whole line:

http://www.transilien.com/web/webdav...df/ligne_D.pdf

you'll see that it stops both at the gare du nord and chatelet-les-halles; these are place where you can transfer onto one of the metro lines to get you to Notre Dame, the louvre, or whatever else you want to see.

hope this helps!

Freda_Seddon

You might want to reconsider the car rental - cut it back to the days when you won't be seeing Paris. Use a taxi to get to RER station. It's kinda expensive to rent a car just to leave it parked all day.

MaineGG

Here's a good site for information about the Navigo pass. There are links on the site for timetables and other useful information:

http://www.vianavigo.com/en/tickets-...avigo-semaine/

Note that the pass you would need is number 2, the Navigo Découverte. In addition to the cost for the weekly pass, there is a one time charge of €5 for the initial issuance. You also need a small photo 3cm tall x 2.5 cm wide (approx 1.2" x 1"). We used photos we took with our digital camera and printed on regular printer paper cut down to size.

If you're concerned about communicating your needs when purchasing the passes, you could print out the French version of the page linked to above and take it with you for reference. What you want is the "Passe Navigo Découverte" with a "forfait semaine" (week's fare) for Zones 1-5.

http://www.vianavigo.com/fr/titres-e...avigo-semaine/

Hope this works well for you.