Looking to travel to Paris in late April. Want to take a day trip/tour out to the Normandy beach area including the local museums.
Anyone have the name a tour group that does a pickup/drop off in Paris. Prefer a smaller tour group--less than 15 people.
Since April is a whole year away I'd be reluctant to suggest anybody - there is no way to know which will still be in business a year from now. Most such businesses are very small and have badly suffered. Since nobody can do that trip this year they will be suffering even more.
If you can, set aside a few days for Normandy. It's such a vast area with a significant amount of museums, beach memorials and other key WWII sites that a day trip doesn't begin to scrape the surface (and there are all sorts of interesting, non-WWII options in the area and incredible food). There are some wonderful private tour guide options that will allow for a full-day, in-depth dive into the area. We did both a private guide for one day and an 8-person group tour the next day. The former was VASTLY superior to the latter and well worth the extra cost.
If a day trip is all you can spare, focus on a beach and 2-3 key sites (Pointe du Hoc would be one of those). When you factor in the round-trip travel from Paris, fitting in a museum would be tough. We greatly enjoyed the recently re-developed Utah Beach Museum and spent about 3 hours there.
I agree that a day trip can be a bit too rushed. But if that is all the time you can spare, you might be able to save some time by taking a train to e.g. Caen or Rouen and find a tour that starts there.
(It might also be helpful to post this in the France part of the forum.)
You'd probably get better answers if you posted this in the France forum.
I assume you mean late April of next year.
Overlord Tours has in the past offered a full-day tour originating at the Bayeux train station that is timed to the arrival of the first morning train from Paris. The website indicates this tour runs only on weekdays, but I wouldn't assume it runs every weekday, especially in April, so you'd need to contact the company. It would be safest if you could be available on several days of your stay in Paris.
Overlord Tours use minivans; they aren't big-bus tours. I think you'd end up with more actual touring time in Normandy by taking the train to Bayeux rather than trying to find a bus tour all the way from Paris. However, you need to be realistic about what can be accomplished on a day when you're going to need to spend nearly 5 hours traveling back and forth on a train. I doubt that you'll have much if any museum time. The invasion sites are quite spread out, and they aren't right at Bayeux, either. The tours--no doubt responding to what their customers want--focus on the invasion sites rather than the museums. Quite a few of the museums are accessible by public transportation, whereas it's harder to get to the sites along the beaches.
I think most of us would recommend giving more time to the Normandy beach area ( we used Dale Booth two years in a row for multiple-day tours). However, if this is the time you have to work with, ParisCityVision tours runs at least one day trip to Normandy, although I would guess it’s a large bus. I also saw Blue Fox Travel showing a small group day trip and Link Paris also runs something similar. I have no experience with either of the latter two options, so do your research unless someone else posts on this thread. We’ve used ParisCityVision in Paris and it was a serviceable big bus tour.
Don't do Normany on a day tour from Paris, you will waste a lot of time traveling. Spend more time there. Don't miss the D day beaches and the Bayeux Tapestry.
