We are planning our first visit to Paris in early march. We are taking the train from London and will fly out of Paris. We have 5 1/2 days in France so I figured we would have a day or so to travel to Normandy by car. After reading some posts I am thinking it may be too ambitious and we should spend our entire 5 days in Paris. Any thoughts or suggestions would be helpful. Thanks!

I can see this is your first visit to Paris, but do you speak and/or read French very well, and have you rented cars and driven in France before? If so, that may change the opinion.

My thoughts are just that I would never consider such a thing myself, it's too complicated and time-consuming for one day. I don't find renting a car for one day in a foreign country and foreign place where I'll have to drive on unfamiliar roads that simple and quick myself, but I think others may do this. I just never would.

Where do you want to go in Normandy? Some parts of Normandy are easy to get to from Paris in a very short time, so you would not need to rent a car, but could take the train--such as Giverny or Rouen.

I would suggest spending the entire five days in Paris. You will never run out of things to do and see. Unless there is some family connection to the Normandy history, I would not try it. Although Paris is very easy to travel, if it is your first trip, you will be spending some time just figuring out the metro and bus routes and how to walk to your destinations, so why cut yourself short.

Stick to Paris the whole time - it has plenty of great things to keep you busy and happy.

Christina makes a good point - your language skills and travel experience are factors in determining whether to embark on a side trip to Normandy on your own. Perhaps a guided tour would be more "doable" - the tourist office could help with that. Or you may want to consider side trips to places not quite so distant from Paris, e.g., Chartres.

Thanks for you help! We will just stick to Paris!

You will be very happy you decided to stick with Paris only. We had 3 whole weeks and intended to take the middle week for the countryside. After 5 days, we couldn't wait to get back to Paris...caught the next train back! With all of 16 days in the City of Light, there are still so many things we didn't have time to do and see.

Worst acse scenario, if you find yourself dying to see Normandy, if you really wanted to you could take a guided bus trip out to the WWII sites. We did this once. You get up at about 6 am and return to Paris at about 9 pm, completely exhausted, but you do get to see the major WWII sites. But you get none of the "charming Normandy village" experince you might be looking for.

But for your first trip to Paris--5 days barely scratches the surface in that city. Go enjoy yourselves--don't add stress, and stay in Paris.

agree - stick to Paris....maybe a 3/4 day trip to Chartres just to give you a slight change of pace