Yes! I am planning my trip to France now, and have added this too. Looks super interesting

Jean d'arc slept everywhere for goodness sake. Why not study the path of the Black Prince for example?

Sure hope the OP finds her way back here . . .

Why???? She didn't hear what she wanted to hear.

Stu Dudley

Could be, but I wouldn't just assume that is the case. She is brand new and may not know there are so many responses.

Drop London and Genoa

If you do buy/rent scooters in Paris, Le Parc Butte Chaumont is a short metro ride from central Paris. It offers lots of hills that would be fun to scoot on, and is an extremely pleasant central city park enjoyed by locals.

Again - Melissa didn't hear what she wanted to hear. Don't waste your time providing recommendations.

Stu Dudley

Thank you for all of the kind responses!
 

I very much appreciate all of the responses offering me advice! I'm touched that people would spend the time. Thank you!

I apologize for checking out for a week. I'm a busy mom with 2 young kids and lots going on. I try to do the planning on the weekend when I have blocks of time to focus.

I've been to Europe many times for both business and pleasure, and to at least half of these places on my own. Our goal is to do 1-2 things a day. But, it's been years and I've never attempted this type of travel with kids aged 12 and 9. I'm going to take some time to sift through all the responses I will get back (hopefully individually) with follow up questions.

At this very moment my son has 2 friends over and they are all begging for pizza! C'est la vie!

Merci beaucoup!

Thank you! This is wonderful advice. I will look up the feeding of the dogs and more. I really, really appreciate your response and that you took time to go into detail. It's extremely helpful.

melissa - We have taken 3 trips with kids and/or grandkids to France and I really believe it is important to travel with your family whenever you can. It's great that you are planning this trip. It appears you have done quite a bit of research and have come up with a lot of fun things to do. I have done some pretty crazy trips myself but I do agree with others that this is very ambitious.

I know you've been to Europe before and your goal is to only do 1 or 2 things a day but when I plug your destinations in to google maps (Paris, London, back to Paris, Chartres, Amboise, Dordogne, Arles, Antibes, Genoa) plus add a few day trips, it comes up to approximately 3000 km (a little less than 1900 miles). For perspective that is about the equivalent of going from New York to Atlanta to Chicago to St Louis. Even though the London trip is via train, it is still LOTS of travel time with lots of checking in and out of hotels.

Since your trip is only about a month away, I'm not sure how much of your trip is locked in. I hope you can trim a few things to reduce the travel time and spend more time enjoying some of the fun places you have chosen.

Dropping Genoa and thanks for London advice, etc.
 

Hello all posters! I'm still sifting through all the responses and note that I'm only allowed to send 2 posts in 24 hours so I'll be addressing a few suggestions together in this post, and then some later. I am signed up for email notifications regarding posts in this thread, but I've only received 2 notifications since my first post more than a week ago. This post has location headings for those people who don't want to read the entire thing.

PARIS: 4 nights, unchanged. We booked a great kids/family tour of the Louvre through AirB&B, of course the Eiffel Tower, a bike tour of Versailles, and a family walking tour of the Marais. I left a full day with nothing specific planned so we can be spontaneous. I'm excited to discover our hotel is very close to the Rodin museum. New question: my mother in law, who is 89, sent me the key to a restaurant in Paris called Restaurant Lasserre. In 1957, on a trip there with her best friend, she joined or was given a membership to the "dining club" and mentioned that we might try to go there. Now, I looked it up and it seems to be an iconic place, and expensive. I would not want to take my children there. Would it be advisable to hire a hotel babysitter and dine there with my husband?

LONDON: Thank you to the person who gave advice about our whirlwind trip to London and back. I appreciate your comment about bad hotel location, and potentially bad hotel. So, we canceled the Royal Eagle and re-booked at the Z Hotel in right in Covent Garden. The room looks tiny, but it shouldn't really matter. It will be easier with a central hotel, and now we'll go to a show given proximity to the playhouses. I floated the idea of not going to London and I was out-voted by my family, so I will embrace the craziness of the quick trip.

LOIRE: I really love the detailed suggestions about what to see with kids along our route! Thank you!!

DORDOGNE: Sorry to those who were mystified trying to find Therac. It's actually Thenac, and I have bad handwriting which I transcribed badly. Thenac is very close to Bergerac. This is about an hour and 20 minutes to Lascaux. To me that's not far if there are interesting places to stop on the home to lodging. I would love any suggestions about that. We're leaning toward making our reservation in Thenac 3 nights.

ARLES: Unchanged, 3 nights at a charming place with grounds and a pool.

GENOA: To the people who chimed in about Genoa, thanks, very helpful! We've decided to drop it based on your advice and comments. It was hard to do because I love Italy, and we were going to take a cheap flight out of there instead of driving all the way back to Paris. However, I'm noticing that Marseilles has flights close to the same price (Nice is more), and the train costs even less. So, we might drop off the rental car and opt for a more relaxed train return to Paris. We are still trying to decide how to do the last couple days of the trip, whether or not to keep the day and night in Antibes.

More soon. We are trying to simplify, but it's hard! So many beautiful places...

Laserre is beyond my idea of expensive - appetizers at 100 euros? OK, if that suits you, but hardly anything would make a drop of caviar be worth it to me (especially with all of France at my doorstep). Up to you, though. It sure is pretty (but so is my back yard).

PLEASE, PLEASE do not stay in Thénac. For those of us who live here in the lovely Dordogne, Thénac is nothing but an ugly, out-of-the-way stop on one of the local railway lines. Don't stay there. Don't even stop and see it. Find a place within about a 25-km radius of Sarlat, focusing on the south and the west. Some villages to consider: Castelnaud, Vitrac, Beynac, La Roque-Gageac, Le Coux-et-Bigaroque, Le Buisson, Cadouin, Le Bugue, Meyrals, St-Cyprien,Tamniès, St-Géniès, Marquay, Monpazier, Belvès, Montignac, Tursac...gosh,there are SO many! But please, NOT Thénac!

I'd pick Chinon or Loches in the Loire, with Amboise and Blois as runners-up.

Just quick: >> I'm only allowed to send 2 posts in 24 hours so I'll be addressing a few suggestions together in this post, and then some later.<<

I'm not 100% sure but I think you've hit the threshold that allows free posting. From observation I know it is 'around' 5 posts, so you should be good to go - off probabtion ;)

more 'just quick' (don't have time to post more right now) . . . The Z is in a wonderful location. You can walk through the back of St Paul's church garden (this is thesmall 'Actors church' - not the Cathedral) to get to the front ot the Covent Garden Piazza, the street performers and you are 2 blocks from the London Transport Museum and about 5 blocks from Trafalgar Square.

>> Thenac is very close to Bergerac. This is about an hour and 20 minutes to Lascaux. <<


Like St Cirq - no, no, no!!!!!! Thenac is 1 hr 50 mins from Lascaux. Same time to Sarlat, Beynac, Roque Gageac, Castelhaud. It is the middle of nowhere!!!! Remember, just like choosing a home - the three most important things to consider are location, location, location. You would not choose to base in San Mateo to explore the Sonoma/Napa wine country would you?? You do not want to spend 4 1/2 hrs in the car each day "getting there" to visit the wonderful sites in the Dordogne.

Consider the advice of people who have "been there"!!!

Stu Dudley

StCirq and StuDudly, thank you very much for the comments about Dordogne! Point taken about Thenac. I love it when people are opinionated, I find it refreshing. The lodging there, Chateau Panisseau, looked so extremely nice on the Internet with 5 star customer reviews and people saying it was a good base for "exploring the area". Didn't know! I guess it depends on what "area" one is exploring and they probably mean the surrounding wine country close to Bergerac. Le Google probably needs to fix it's maps also. They indicate a shorter drive.

So, I'm taking your advice. Now I'm holding a couple of reservations for 24 hours while I decide on either Sarlat-La-Caneda or Montignac for 3 nights. Trying to decide. The place in Montignac might be better for my kids because it has a pool, a trampoline and huge grounds. But I think I would love the more bustling Sarlat-La-Caneda. It's nice to have some good options and the prices in that area were very reasonable. The other thing I could do is reduce it to 2 nights and extend in Amboise for a night because we're only currently there for one.

We are going to train back from southern France at the end. Now I have another question, about trains. Perhaps should post elsewhere, but does anyone have experience with OUIgo, the new low-cost, high speed train? It's sooooo inexpensive, and we were going to drop the rental car and try to take it back to CDG Paris from the south the day before our flight home. How dependable is it? Would you place a gamble on it's not being canceled? It's only about 69 euro for my entire family to go from Avignon to CDG and we don't mind packing our own picnic. But, I heard they sometimes cancel and then you have pay last minute prices for the TGV, if it's not full.

Thank you again everyone!