We’ve booked a 14-day roundtrip vacation to France, flying in and out of Paris. Our 5-hour overnight flight from eastern Canada lands at Charles de Gaulle (CDG) around 10 a.m. on a Sunday.
We're planning to start our trip in the Alsace region, but we don’t want to book high-speed train (TGV) tickets for the first day in case our flight is delayed. Instead, we’re thinking of taking a short regional train to a nearby town, staying overnight, and picking up a rental car the next day. Troyes looks like a good option. Does that sound reasonable and do you have any feedback on Troyes?
Here’s our draft itinerary:
- Arrive in Paris, take a train to Troyes, and stay overnight (1 night).
- Pick up a rental car and drive to Alsace. We’re thinking of staying in a small town like Sélestat, Bergheim, Obernai, or Kaysersberg (4 nights). We haven’t booked accommodations yet and we are open to suggestions.
- Optional: We might visit friends in Karlsruhe, Germany. It’s about a 90-minute drive from Alsace. We're not sure yet if it’ll be a day trip or an overnight stay.
- We are still deciding on the rest of the trip and have three ideas:
- Option 1: Spend the remaining time in a small town in Burgundy (about a 3-hour drive from Alsace).
- Option 2: Return to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where we stayed before and loved it. This time, we’d explore areas to the east and the Luberon. It’s about a 7-hour drive but might have warmer weather in October. From there, we'd likely return the car in Avignon and take a train to CDG the day before our flight home.
- Option 3 is a combination: 3 nights in Burgundy, 4 nights in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, the final night in Paris.
We are very interested to hear your thoughts or suggestions on this plan, especially on towns to stay in Alsace or Burgundy.