Trip to Roanne in March
 

My husband, 12-year-old daughter and I are going from Anchorage to Roanne in early March to meet my other daughter who is a foreign exchange student there. We are thinking about a trip to Spain through the south of France. We have 8 days for travel. Any suggestions? Thank you.

Do you mean Rouen? If so, perhaps you should re-post so people will have an accurate idea of where you're going and what you'd like to do.

I'm going to assume the poster knows that her daughter is exchanging in Roanne and not Rouen, or Royan, for that matter.
You could certainly zip down to Spain from Roanne and have maybe four good days there, or more if you were flying home out of Spain, but you could also do some wonderful exploration of the Massif Central or Provence or the Dordogne or other regions of France.
Have you been to France before? Do you have a compelling reason to go to Spain? I just ask because 8 days isn't that much time, and from Roanne you have quite a few options, with Spain being a fairly rushed one, IMO.

Yes, I do mean Roanne, which is about an hour away from Lyon. It is a small town primarily known for its excellent restaurant, Troisgros, which is considered one of the top 10 restaurants in France. Thank you

My daughter is taking a tour of France in April with her exchange program, and has asked if we would mind going someplace different, like Spain. We consented, but to be truthful, I am a first time traveler to Europe and will be happy to just set foot on the continent. Any travel suggestions would be welcome. Coming from Alaska, we were trying to find someplace somewhat on the warmer side. Thanks

Will you have a car? Rail travel from Roanne to Spain could be tricky. With a car you could hop from Roanne down to the Bouche-du-Rhône area of Provence for a couple of days (see St-Rémy, Les Baux, Arles, the Camargue), then follow the coast through Montpellier and Béziers and Perpignan and Collioure and on to the Costa Brava and Barcelona. You'd probably best plan to fly home from Barcelona, though.
There are actually dozens of itineraries you could take, but without knowing more about how you plan to travel and what you like to see and do and where you could fly home from, it's hard to know where to begin.

Thank you so much for the information. We are flying from Anchorage to Frankfort then to Lyon. We are supposed to fly back out of Lyon - we have to get our daughter back to Roanne. My husband definitely favors taking a car, and I like the independence of having a vehicle, especially traveling as a family. We travel a great deal in Alaska in a vehicle. The trip you described sounded wonderful. I would very much like to see Arles and then drive to Barcelona. We would like to stay in quiet, non-touristy hotels along the way. My daughter speaks very good French, but none of us speak much Spanish. We are not trying to cram stuff in, we want to take in the countryside and the flavors of the region. We like to be active, but this is supposed to be as stress-less a vacation as it can be. Thanks again.

Just for the record, you can drive from Lyon to Barcelona in around 7 hours - easily doable in a day. So if you are breaking up your trip with stops in other regions (such as those StCirq suggested), you won't even have that much driving to do each day.