Dear Travel Experts,

I have been reading and enjoying this forum for years but this is my first time posting. We are a couple in our late 40s, very active, love history, architecture, photography, walk-able historic districts, food and people watching. When travelling, we start our days early and prefer exploring new places on foot. We are not huge fans of overly touristy places, don't usually visit museums and don't care much about wine. We are fully vaccinated and are tracking all COVID-related requirements. If no ban on tourists from the US or quarantine requirements are implemented, we are planning to spend 2 first weeks of October in Alsace/Champagne/Burgundy area. This time we decided against using public transport. For now we only payed for flight tickets.

Here is our tentative itinerary:
Day 1: arrival to Zurich in the early afternoon, getting rental car and driving to our first base in Selestat (4 nights).
Day 2: day trip to Colmar and Eguisheim;
Day 3: Touring small villages and towns on Alsace wine trail ;
Day 4: possibly day trip to Freiburg or, in lieu of this, adding extra day to one of our other bases; any suggestions?
Day 5: whole day in Strasbourg and drive to Metz (2 nights);
Day 6: day trip to Nancy;
Day 7: from Metz drive to Reims to visit cathedral and then to Troyes (2 nights);
Day 8: day trip to Auxerre;
Day 9: drive with stops in Noyers - Vezelay - Avallon - Semur en Auxois - to Autun (3 nights);
Day 10: day trip to Dijon and Beaune;
Day 11: day trip circling Paray le Monial - Semur en Brionnais – possibly Cluny - Tournus. Any other suggestions for Saone area?
Day 12: spend half a day in Besancon and drive to Lucerne (2 nights);
Day 14: flight from Zurich around noon.

Please critique freely; any of your suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Nathan

I originally posted this on Europe forum and now am re-posting to France If there is no ban on tourists from the US or quarantine mandates in Switzerland and/or France, during the first two weeks of October we are planning to tour by car Alsace, part of Champagne and Burgundy, flying in and out of Zurich. My wife and I love history, architecture, photography, walk-able historic districts, food, and people watching. When travelling, we start our days early and love to explore places on foot. We are not huge fans of overly touristy places, don't usually visit museums and are not into wine.

Here is our tentative itinerary:
Day 1: arrival to Zurich in the early afternoon, getting rental car and driving to our first base in Selestat (4 nights).
Day 2: day trip to Colmar and Eguisheim;
Day 3: visiting villages and towns on Alsace wine trail;
Day 4: day trip to Freiburg; another option would be in lieu of visiting Freiburg to add this day to our stay in one of other places;
Day 5: day in Strasbourg and drive to our next base in Metz (2 nights);
Day 6: day trip to Nancy;
Day 7: drive to Reims to visit cathedral and then to our next base in Troyes (2 nights);
Another option would be to stay in Metz on day 6 and on day 7, in lieu of going to Reims, spend bigger part of the day in Nancy on our way to Troyes;
Day 8: day trip to Auxerre;
Day 9: with stops in Noyers - Vezelay - Avallon - Semur en Auxois drive to our base in Autun (3 nights). What are the must visits and what can be dropped?
Day 10: day trip to Dijon and possibly Beaune;
Day 11: drive around Saone with stops in Paray le Monial - Semur en Brionnais - possibly Cluny - Tournus.
Day 12: drive to Lucerne (2 nights) with long stop in Besancon on the way;
Day 14: flight from Zurich around noon.

Please critique freely, any your suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Nathan

Too much to see in Nancy for a single day, especially if you like art nouveau

https://flic.kr/p/2gFjDaQ
https://flic.kr/p/2gFgzkf

Thank you Michael. We realize that Nancy requires as much time as we can spare. Therefore, we are ready to drop Reims from the itinerary and, by leaving Metz early, we will be able to spend the bigger part of our day 7 in Nancy.

Well I last went to Alsace for 5 days, the time before for 2 weeks and I've been a few times before. It looks horribly rushed to me and I can't see any way to cut and slice. The castles, the Ballon, the fortified towns, the Rhine, Munster

Even just going to Auxerre, what about Chablis, Cravant, the two monesteries, St Bris, Irancy, Tonnerre.

Is there anyway you could extend? If you follow my name back far enough you'll find a visit report for wine tasting in Alsace.

Haven’t been to Nancy in over three decades, but I’d be hard pressed to drop Reims with its magnificent cathedral, site of the coronation of many French kings. So much to see and do and never enough time… 😟

I agree that the cathedral of Reims (almost identical to Notre Dame de Paris) is worth seeing -- but a visit to it could easily take only 2 or 3 hours in one's day.

It is really hard to adjust a trip like this, but if you can make adjustments to your accommodations easily, leave as many options as possible open. Meanwhile, I have nothing against them, but I am not a giant fan of Dijon or Avallon.

I am a big fan of both Strasbourg and Nancy, enough so that I went back for a second visit. I realize that I am more interested in museums (NOT art museums) than you are, but the towns still have plenty of interesting buildings, and Nancy has a stellar square.

Start here for my first visit: Nice to Paris: on not taking it easy in Eastern France

Photos (unedited): https://kwilhelm.smugmug.com/Travel/...urg-ad-Colmar/ and https://kwilhelm.smugmug.com/Travel/France-2009/Nancy/

Second visit: https://mytimetotravel.wordpress.com...ng-strasbourg/ and https://mytimetotravel.wordpress.com...-hot-in-nancy/

I also found more to see in Zurich than I had expected: https://mytimetotravel.wordpress.com...ecting-zurich/

We have merged your two threads into one. Helpful hint, there is no special forum for France. There is one Europe Forum and threads can be tagged for a specific country(s).

If you wish to spend time on back roads, look up Discovering the Villages of France by Michael Busselle. There are two volumes. Many of his choices, organized by region, were not part of the Plus Beaux Villages de France, but that may have changed. It's using the first volume that we fell upon these towns in the Champagne region:

https://flic.kr/p/8pwkma
https://flic.kr/p/8pwkwV
There is a Michelin map of France which lists all the plus beaux villages available as of date of printing.

If interested in architecture, you should pass by Ronchamp:

https://flic.kr/p/8pwpz8

Thank you so much, everyone for all your replies and suggestions. This is exactly what we've been looking for.

@bilboburgler: I am the first to admit that it's a rushed itinerary, but with limited time and just based on our previous experience, I thought that one full day in each, Colmar and Strasbourg will scratch enough surface for us. As for the villages on the Alsace wine trail, they all look super-cute but I honestly cannot distinguish one from another, at least from the pictures on the internet. This and our lack of interest in wine made me skip Chablis area as well. Thank you for mentioning Cravant (100 years war). It did not pop up in my searches. Now I understand that it was merged with another town.

@geetika: if we are hard pressed for time, we probably will drop Reims, but just from this trip. It can be easily added to another one, hopefully, in the not so distant future around Hauts-de-France and Belgium. It will be interesting to compare its cathedral to the places like Amiens, Beauvais and Laon.

@kerouac: yes, for the pandemic-related reasons, I wanted to be as flexible this time as we can. This will be the first trip for us when we will be booking hotels as we progress. If you don't mind, I am very interested to learn what was with Dijon that made you not a fan.

@thursdaysd: your pictures look lovely. I just need more time to look more carefully as well as to read your reports. I admit that we are missing out by overlooking Zurich, but this time it's just a convenient starting point for our long-planned Grand East trip with relatively inexpensive direct flights.

@michael: I will look this book up. Interestingly, some of the listed villages in France and Spain that we visited in the past just did not appeal to us because of their "lack of life". It's a very subjective opinion though. The vast majority rightfully adore these places.

The pictures are of sleepy little villages, visually appealing but probably lacking in life; which is the case for most rural villages in the off-season. A friend had very negative feelings about the much frequented villages and towns of the Dordogne, such as Sarlat and Domme, feeling that they no longer represented the life that created their architecture--it was all tourism and vacation homes now. But you can't revive traditional agriculture. In the hamlet where we had a house my father used to go in the 70's to the local farmer to get milk (illegal but no one checked). Ten years later, that was impossible because all bovine operations had switched from milk cows to cattle. The hamlet (90 pop.) had just two farmers left, one in the hamlet itself with a sheep barn and the other with a cattle farm about 1 km. down the road. Aside market days, towns are not very lively, except for those, such as a plus beau village, that attract visitors.

Michael is right, except for the ‘plus beaux’, most villages don’t have much activity, especially in the evenings. In June 2018 we rented a house in the Vaucluse and one evening we dropped my niece and her two friends in the village square. The girls had just graduated from college and wanted to have a nice dinner at one of the two restaurants in town. They called back in half an hour asking to be picked up, everything closed at 8pm…didn’t matter that it was a Friday evening, probably no youngsters in the village and the older folks stayed home!

The problem is simply because I have visited so many different places in France that some of them just don't click with me. However, I propose my photo report about Dijon from 5 years ago which will almost certainly convince you to go there: Dijon in spite of myself (by K2) | Any Port in a Storm (proboards.com)

>>Please critique freely, any your suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Nathan<<

My suggestions:
Day 1: arrive Zurich in the early afternoon, get rental car and drive to our first base in Selestat (4 nights).
Day 2: day trip to Colmar and Eguisheim.
Day 3: day trip visiting villages and towns AND A CASTLE on Alsace wine trail.-CHATEAU du HAUT-KOENIGSBOURG, RIQUEWIHR, KAYSERSBERG, etc.
Day 4: day trip to Strasbourg. Take the TRAIN, round trip(30 min each way), SELESTAT-STRASBOURG.
Day 5: an all day stop in Nancy en route, then drive to our base in Metz(2 nights). https://goo.gl/maps/4BuYZuLcSX2vRe5Z9
Day 6: Explore Metz.
Day 7: drive to Reims to visit cathedral and then to our next base in Troyes (2 nights).
Day 8: day trip to Auxerre.
Day 9: with stops at FONTENAY ABBEY (Must visit) and Vezelay drive to our base in Autun (3 nights). https://goo.gl/maps/XA3aWtU8T5JeUGAC9
Day 10: day trip to Beaune (HOTEL DIEU is a must visit) and the to Dijon.
Day 11: drive around Saone with stops in Paray le Monial - Semur en Brionnais - possibly Cluny - Tournus.
Day 12: drive to Lucerne (2 nights) with long stop in Besancon on the way.
Day 13: Explore Lucerne.
Day 14: fly home from Zurich around noon.

@michael and @geetika: from our limited experience, those listed villages that are rather in beautiful natural settings usually meet our expectations, like Albarracin or Cordes-sur-Ciel;

@kerouac: thank you very much for the link to your older report. Now we want to visit Dijon even more. The clouds, puddles and umbrellas make us a little uneasy though, since we will be there in October.

dugi_otok : Thank you for two wonderful ideas: 1) by dropping Noyers from our day 9 we can see Chatillon-sur-Siene en route to Fontenay Abbey; 2) the way you suggested our day 5 will add a couple of extra hours to the time that we will be able to spend in Nancy.

Overall, with all your help, we believe we are settled on our itinerary and are very happy that decided to post.

We like the Saone et Loire area and have spent time in different parts. It is a big day you are planning, but you did ask for other suggestions. If you are already going to Paray le Monial and Semur en Brionnais, you could also stop at Anzy le Duc which has a lovely abbey. On the way to Cluny you could go past the fairytale chateau at La Clayette. I am not sure it opens, but it is pretty. In the Cluny/Tournus area we like the lovely village of Brancion and alos the wonderful Romanesque church at Chapaize.

I have trip reports here but as our time in this region was the last week of ten week trips, I will give the link to the week reports which I posted elsewhere. We visited some of the places you have mentioned.

In 2016 we stayed at Charolles
https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowT...che_Comte.html

In 2018 we stayed in Lugny
https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowT...nche_Comt.html

Bon voyage

@rhon: thank you so much for mentioning these places in Saone and for the links to your detailed reports. Brancion castle looks impressive and La Clayestte is indeed beautiful. We are looking forward to the long days like this and we are happy to fly for these days across the ocean.

Dear Fodorites,

After coming back from our trip I just wanted to thank you all for your suggestions. Everything was close to perfect, as much as it could be, considering the circumstances of traveling now days. Pretty much we followed the discussed itinerary. The only big difference was that we did not go to Troyes and spent three nights in Lyon instead. It turned out to be a very good decision since Lyon has everything that we usually look for, including rich history, magnificent buildings and squares, breathtaking views from their hills and very interesting public art. Metz, Dijon and Auxerre were the other biggest highlights. Auxerre pleasantly surprised us since there we had a lot of "wow" moments for its size and relative sleepiness. In Metz we just felt very comfortable, had the best stay in the hotel in the converted old armory and found the best charcuterie. All places that we visited in Alsace were beautiful, as we expected, but a little bit on a touristy side. Our favorite small places on this trip were Vezelay, Semur-en-Auxois and Paray-le-Monial. If we did this all again, we would spend a little less time than we did in Reims and Nancy, that did not impress much beyond their major attractions, the Cathedral and Place Stanislas. The only small regret, if the word even can be used in this content, was that the revised route did not allow us to see Besancon.
Thank you all again.