France trip

Bacchus

Hi,
Trying to plan a 10 day (roughly) trip to France with my gf. The plan is to visit 3 cities/towns. Plan A is fly in/out to/from Paris and either spend a few days there at the start or the end of the trip. I need a few ideas on other nice cities to visit. I was thinking about Lyon. Does anyone know how nice it is? Also, maybe spend a few days in Geneva or Annecy. I hear they are lovely. Those 3 I mentioned would be handy to travel too with the rail system there.
Does anyone have any suggestions of other nice places to go, any hidden gems? I was recently in Carcassonne and Montpellier and I loved them so something with a similar feel to them would be great.

Plan B would be to fly in/out of Carcassone and visit a few of the small coast towns in the south. Annecy and Lyon are reasonably close too so a visit there would be possible.

Any help appreciated.

Bacchus

bazzer06

hey,

first of all, i dont think ya can go to France without goin to Paris - it just seems wrong... as regards nice places to go, i really liked Metz in the north east - lovely old city with an impressive cathedral and great bars and restaurants. Also luxembourg is nearby and makes for a convenient and interesting day trip.

Haven't been to annecy but i have heard it is fantastic from plenty of reliable sources!

Also la rochelle on the west coast is a beautiful city with lots to do.

I'd reccomend a flight in to la rochelle, then head up to paris, then metz- this way you nsee three completely different parts of france and three fantastic cities. However, i'm not sure how easy it would be to get a flight from metz home - ya might have to head back to paris.

Also, if you're a city buff, i would change either metz or la rochelle for Lyon - i really liked the place and it has a great bar/restaurant scene and a completely different feel to paris, while still having a "big city" feel to it. Also easier to get home from than Metz!

shrapnel222

if you liked carcassonne and montpellier, you'll like toulouse.

one idea could be to start in toulouse, go to the bassin d'arcachon (beautiful place), then bordeaux, then make your way to paris

Bacchus

Thanks for the comments.

First, bassin d'arcachon looks amazing. I'd be really interested in going there. Can you recommend a place to stay there? We'll be most likely flying with Ryanair (cheapest) so a flight to Carcassonne, a night there, few nights in the the bassin d'arcachon region followed by a few nights and flight back home from Paris could be a good idea.

la rochelle looks cool too. Maybe a flight to there, then to bassin d'arcachon and the last few days in Paris. Hmmm, so many options so little time.

jarain

Doing something very similiar in July with my GF, flying into Marseille, travelling along the coast to Nice/Cannes (haven't decided yet) then up to Lyon and on to Paris for a couple of days before flying home. We have 16/17 days over there.

At the moment We are undecided about Nice etc we have heard it can be expensive.

Bacchus

We have 10 days to play with and trying to keep costs down a bit. Flights to La Rochelle are quite cheap which is good :-)

Might I recommend you give Marseille a miss if ye are planning on staying there. I was there (briefly) last year. Got mugged and that aside, I still found the city very dull and uninviting. It's a city in decay and to be honest there is not much of any interest there. I was in Montpellier a few weeks ago and the people there said similar stuff about Marseille. Montpellier is great btw. I loved it there.

Tom Dunne

bazzer06 wrote:

I'd reccomend a flight in to la rochelle, then head up to paris, then metz- this way you nsee three completely different parts of france and three fantastic cities. However, i'm not sure how easy it would be to get a flight from metz home - ya might have to head back to paris.

Another thumbs up for Metz - I stumbled across it a few years back. Had a car, though. We were in Luxembourg and were looking for somewhere different and found Metz. What an amazing place. Only spent the day there, but it was beautiful.

Have you thought about the South up as far as Nice (and Monaco)? Also very beautiful there, loads of tiny little towns and villages and very accessible with the train which runs all the way down as far as Marsailles (AFAIR).

shrapnel222

can't help for places to stay i'm afraid. La Rochelle is nice, but nothing amazing... for me anyway- i suppose you could say it's pleasant

as for nice and cannes during the summer? my idea of hell!!! overpriced, drab, dreary, pretentious etc.... I agree though there are plenty of lovely little villages on that coast around there, but it's just so mobbed out during the summer. That area is best visited during the off months like september or june when it's not so busy

Bacchus

Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced hotel in Paris?

folkswagen

I have found booking through www.activehotels.com very good - we usually stay near the disneyland resort:D Have stayed in paris before also - tons of hotels on Rue de Lafayette - good central location but hotels not great quality and pricey enough - we are spoilt here in Ireland with good hotels!!!