Rhigardt

My Wife and I will be visiting during the Rugby world cup 30Sep- 16 Oct, our trip ends in Paris with two games just before we fly out. We have 6 days planned in Paris before we fly out, but need to figure out how to spend the rest of the 9 days.

At the moment the thinking is to try and see a few places
Bordeaux (2d)
train to
Montpellier or Toulouse(2d)
train to
Nice(2d)
Then rent a car and do a road trip from Nice back up to Paris(3d). The idea of the road trip is to leisurely drive along scenic routes and stop at some spots along the way.

Could also do the reverse and take a train down to nice and rent a car in toulouse and drive to Paris that way around. The only reason I suggest going form Nice to Paris is that I expect the more hilly route to be more scenic.

Any advice on the durations(I know 2 days per city is very short, open to spend more time in less locations)

annhig

Hi Rhighart - welcome to Fodors! and lucky you. what a great dilemma to have.

But I'm a little confused about how many nights you have for each place - when you say 2 days do you actually mean 2 nights or three? Because 2 nights in each place will effectively only give you one clear day there, and those sorts of trips can quickly get quite tiring. You're also going to be spending quite a long time in trains - from CDG it's 4 hours to Bordeaux, anther 3 or so to Toulouse, and then at least 6-7 to Nice. Usually I'm all in favour of trains but in this case perhaps a more time efficient way to deal with it would be to fly straight from CDG to Nice or Toulouse, [not both] spend some time in that city, say at least 3 nights, then rent a car and work your way back to Paris, returning your car at a convenient place where you can can catch a train into Paris.

uktravelover

I have driven from Paris to Nice and vice versa on a number of occasions when we drove across from the UK to holiday in France and Italy. Getting in and out of Paris can be a challenge particularly using the perepherique. Traffic is usually very heavy. On our route back typically on the weekend, we used to stop in Orleans on Saturday night so we could get around Paris late morning or lunchtime on a Sunday to avoid long delays. Parts of the different routes to/from the south are lovely, but it is a long all day drive without stopping.

With regards to your trip, I would either go to the south-west of France or the south of France. You will spend too much time travellling if you do the two. Should you opt for the south west, you can take the TGV from Paris to Bordeaux in about 2 hours 15 minutes. Stay there for 2 nights and then pick up a car and do a route northwards stopping at La Rochelle, Poitiers and Tours. You can use Tours to explore part of the Loire Valley. Return the car at Tours and take the TGV back to Paris.

if you want to go to Provence and the Côte d’Azur, take the TGV to Avignon which takes about 3.5 hours. Stay there 2 nights and then pick up a car and go to Arles, Aix en Provence and then Nice. Use Nice as a base to explore and fly back to Paris.

jpie

Given your dates I might be tempted to do the reverse as potentially Nice could be nicer in October than the Bordeaux area. But with climate these days that is always a hard one to plan on. I will say that I have done the Nice to Paris drive a couple of times, and just sticking to straight freeway driving it is nearly a 10 hour drive. So if you do decide to drive that route and want to really see anything on the drive, I would allow at least 2 nights for the driving route time. I personally think you might get "more bang for your buck" on the driving portion as uktravelover suggests to drive around the area of Bordeaux and then take a TGV back to Paris from either Bordeaux or Tours depending on if you want to explore the Loire.

Another good idea might be to go to Nice then drive to Bordeaux area from there. If you detouring through the Perigord, you would have about the same amount of driving time as from Nice to Paris and IMO a much more scenic drive. But of course, you may have already explored those areas before.

annhig

<<Another good idea might be to go to Nice then drive to Bordeaux area from there. If you detouring through the Perigord, you would have about the same amount of driving time as from Nice to Paris and IMO a much more scenic drive. But of course, you may have already explored those areas before.>>

JPIE - I like that idea a lot. Lots of fun diversions along the way too.

travellerwannabe

sounds like too much for me. Are you looking for something in particular? I would spend a few days in the French Riviera (not just Nice), there is a lot to see there including Monaco and one other. You can also pick closer places to Paris, like Lille? if you are into WW1/2 stuff then a trip to Normany?

jpie

I meant to say that I would allow at least one overnight and 2 driving days of around 5 hours each.

shelemm

I don't see the point in going to Bordeaux and Montpellier for two nights each. Too much moving around to spend too little time there.

annhig

I agree shelemn . Less [ie fewer stops] is definitely more.

Rhigardt

Thanks so much for all the inputs - I discussed it with my wife and we've agreed that we'll skip Bordeaux this time around and concentrate on the South. I have not spent much time outside of Paris and a few days in Troyes and this will be my wife's first time in France - I expect she's so eager to drink it in that we've perhaps tried to do too much,

Apart from wanting to stop in Carcassonne she's pretty much open to rejigging the plan. I've conceded that my idea of a road-trip probably would be better suited to a much longer time period so we canned that idea too- perhaps we could rent a car and drive around the south instead of using public transport if that is more practical?

We fly in from South Africa and land on the morning of the 30th and we sleep in Paris again on the 9th - the rest is open to be re-ordered

annhig

<<We fly in from South Africa and land on the morning of the 30th and we sleep in Paris again on the 9th - the rest is open to be re-ordered>>

I think that you are very wise to drop Bordeaux Rhigardt, and concentrate on the south. There are obviously an infinite number of options, but one would be to fly to Toulouse from CDG on the morning you arrive, [plenty of direct flghts with Air France taking just over an hour] spend a couple of nights in the city, and then rent a car and drive to Carcassone, then perhaps Nimes and Arles, finally returning your car to a convenient train station [Avignon for example] and catching the TGV back to Paris which will take about 4 hours. That would be a relatively easy trip showing your wife quite a lot of the south but in a nice relaxed way.