trying to decide where to go next time.

[robandshelley]

Hello all. We are in the advanced daydreaming stage of our next trip to France. The given is that we will spend a few days in Paris before coming home.

I have started digging through the books, but the choices are too many. We need help narrowing down the search.

Here are our parameters at this point:

We do not want to drive, preferring to use a train pass.

We would like to see castles, ruins and updated.

Would like to stay in a coastal village as a home base and day trip out by train.

We would like to experience the smaller villages.

Love medieval towns, and churches of all kinds, ol mills and especially Roman stuff.

OK, there you go. Can you suggest a few areas to concentrate on. We have a couple years before we go so all options are open at this point.

Thanks,

Rob

[Becky (Berkeleytravelers)]

Hi Rob - wow, have you got options! First, to get everything on your wish list, you may need to drive. The good news on that point, however, is that driving in France (outside of Paris!) is much like driving here and would not be stressful. (And for some areas, it's about the only way to get to the types of sites you are thinking of.)

I think it would be difficult to base in a coastal village and plan on going to other parts of France by train on day trips - any coastal village with train service is likely to have only the "local" trains and they take forever to get any place because they stop so often. (Also, you generally can do much better on cost by getting point-to-point train tickets in advance, although that gives you less flexibility as to when/where you will go.)

You certainly could do the Loire valley chateaux with a small van tour group to avoid doing your own driving (train from Paris down to that area is a little over an hour). I'm sure you've seen the trip reports from Willow and Catherine on that, with the spectacular photos. It's an interesting area with a great deal of history.

You could take the train to some interesting small cities, such as Dijon and Lyon, and rent a car or get a tour from there to vineyards in Burgundy (your post didn't mention wine, but I'm assuming ;D).

You could take the train from Paris to Bordeaux (about 4.5 hours on the TGV), and stay in St Emillion or someplace similar - really lovely, and you can visit vineyards plus see chateaux etc. (you probably would want to get a car to drive around the area).

For Roman ruins, you will want to go south. Holger will be back in a few days and can fill you in on her Loire, Provence and Dordogne experiences. My favorite area outside of Paris is the Dordogne, but you definitely would need a car there, as there's little public transit.

The north of France (Honfleur, Bayeux, etc.) can be reached by train combined with tours or car rentals, and has a lot of historic interest (medieval through recent).

Rouen is a city I have not yet visited, but have always wanted to as it's reputed to be one of the best preserved medieval cities in France - about 60 to 90 minutes by train from Paris. There actually are a lot of areas that can be done as day trips from Paris, such as Chantilly and Reims (oops, there's that alcohol angle again ;D ).

My suggestion would be to get some guidebooks for regions (e.g., Provence, Burgundy, Normandy/Brittany, etc.) and try to get a sense of what you find interesting (or, if you're interested in a particular period of history, perhaps find out what's in the general area of places associated with that period - for instance, the Dordogne was in the heart of the Hundred Years War with many chateaux changing hands regularly between French and English control, and also was very active in the Resistance during WWII).

[robandshelley]

Our reluctance to drive is for two reasons. 1) We really enjoy not having to drive for a couple weeks as I drive 70 miles round trip to work each day. and 2) We fear that our pathetic French will be too much of a handicap when it comes to signage and asking for directions once we are lost, which always happens.

Maybe my French will improve dramatically between now and then and it won't be an issue.

Speaking of which.....is Rosetta Stone software that much better than most of the off the shelf language books/cd's? It is a good bit more expensive that what I am using, but I am also not getting the results I had hoped for so far with the generic stuff.


Another option we have talked about is settling into some great seaside town for several days then go to Paris for the rest of the trip.

More to read...........more to learn..........

Rob

[andi]

As with Becky I would say northern France.....Normandy (D-Day landings) maybe Mont St Michel (castle, water, history) Dinan and Renes (shopping and harbour).......all are accessable by train I think and within a few hours of Paris.

[Becky (Berkeleytravelers)]

Rob -

I think you could do a lot without driving, based from Paris. See mtngrl reports (in Paris Trip Reports) which includes some days in the Bayeux area, including a tour to the Normandy beaches. Also see Willow's and Catherine's reports about going to the Loire, again without a car. Dijon, Rouen and Lyon are within a couple of hours of Paris by train, and all are very interesting in their own right. So - entirely possible to do a lot without driving. (And, if you change your mind while there, it's easy to do car rentals because there are agencies at every TGV station I've seen.)

Try this for planning - find a map showing the TGV routes (big time saver compared to the "milk run" trains), and see which very old/interesting cities are long each route. You can see a good route map at bonjourlafrance.net/france-trains/corail/corail.htm. This also lets you figure out which cities will link up, and gives you complete TGV schedules for each train, with all stops and information about the amenities of the train. (One thing - don't try to actually book through this site, as it will flip you over to Eurail for ticket purchase and you can do much better on the SNCF web site, once you know what you want.)

About language lessons - my husband has been using Rosetta Stone but also a couple of others. I don't think the results are really any different - I don't know whether it would fit with your work schedule, given your comment about your commute, but a class for beginners might be an easier introduction. (However, he didn't speak a word of French the first time he went with me in 2001, but now does pretty well at getting by based on what he has taught himself plus a short adult education class in beginning French.)

[Shoesy]

I would highly recommend visiting the Loire Valley. I can't imagine a place more beautiful and picturesque. The chateaux there are unbelievable - each one very unique. We drove there, but there are organized tours that you can take if you don't want to drive.

[Anne]

Becky is right, travelling by train from a village may be very difficult, if only because most villages' train stations have been closed long ago unless the village is a very touristic one or there is a commuters traffic from it .

As far as the directions problem is concerned, this can be solved with a GPS device . I think that all the car renting companies now offer the option of getting a car equipped with a GPS system, and I assume that these systems offer a language choice option as the mobile GPS do .

All the architectural stuff that you are looking for can be found in Provence, where most French Roman ruins are located .

[sistereurope]

Yes Rob, it sounds like you might like Provence...take a look at the posts in this thread about the Cote d'Azure. We're planning a trip to Provence (actually from Nice to Barcelona, with some time in Provence). I've been reading up on the area and I'm excited!
We're driving but the train does go there. Just another thought...but planning is half the FUN!

[robandshelley]

Cave man that I am I did not think about gps. Maybe driving would be ok for part of the trip.

Originally we had talked about spending a week in Italy then taking a train to Paris for the last few days. But it looked like we could do better with our money and time to stay in France next time. So many destinations, so little money.........

My grandfather was in the Marseille area for nearly all of 1945 as an Army mechanic. Maybe we could combine a little family history with the vacation. This last trip I got to see where he most likely slept on a one-night stopover at Fontaineblue, ( they were traveling by convoy from Le Havre to Marseille) which was very cool.

Rob

[luvparee]

Have you thought about Provence? I have been there twice and love it more each time I'm there. However, you would need a car in order to get around easily. There are great perched villages, small towns, etc., and the scenery is fabulous.

I was there last summer with 6 of my girlfriends and we stayed in a B & B/guesthouse in Pernes les Fontaines which we found was very central to all the places we wanted to see. Pernes is a very cute town that boasts 39 fountains! It's a fun walk looking at the various fountains and buildings with surprises around every cobblestoned corner. (www.lelavandinprovence.com).

The villages/towns we visited were:

L'Isle sur la Sorgue (fabulous market on Sunday morning!), Bonnieux, Menerbes, Lumieres, Coustellet, Roussillon, Abbaye de Senanque, Joucas, went to Pont du Gard, Vaison la Romaine, Le Crestet, Seguret, Gigondas, Maubec, St. Remy, and Cassis.

We missed seeing Lourmarin and Ansouis, but there must be something left for the next trip, right?

We loved every minute of our time at the guesthouse and in that area of Provence.

[toutou]

You didn't see Avignon.. ?? What a shame. It is lovely.

[greyghost1]

Rob, I have tried so many French language lessons in the car/on CD's/ DVD's and most seem to be pretty much the same. I did begin on the BBC French VCR with a big green MUZZY....when we 1st visited Paris my intonations were...yes, MUZZY sing-song. Of course, the course was for children. I got a few odd looks but learn I did. It was actually pretty funny. Now 7 trips later I use only Rosetta Stone. Most likely becuase I am used to that format. And I have taught myself a lot. Except all my learning failed when I couldn't understand what the lady at the laundry was saying when they lost all our clothes. Boy did she speak fast and kept throwing up her arms. Ah well. I finally got it back almost a week later.