16 Day France Itinerary Help! Is Luberon Worth seeing in April?

If you want to relax and enjoy the beauties of France, you might consider doing less ---- and getting more out of the trip.

You could fly into Marseille or Nice and spend 3-4 days on the Riviera. There's a darling village, just north of Saint Tropez that offers wonderful hiking and restaurants (La Garde Freinet) and you could take the train for day trips along the coast (Ville Franche Sur Mer/Menton/Ventimiglia) There's also a couple of wonderful, but small art museums along the coast (Renoir, Matisse, for example)

Then head to beautiful Luberon for small market towns and hiking. Stay in a couple of towns over 8-9 days. Make a home base and relax into it. Take day trips to different towns (by car).

Then you could take the TGV from Avignon back to Paris for your final days. Your husband will be relaxed, over jet-lag, and more ready for Paris.

Three points: too many different questions at once, so try to single them out for clarity. Putting away my red pen now.
2- fly to Nice and sped the night before attempting to drive anywhere if you've flown in on an overnight flight.
3- list your stops as nights, not days and put in list form. Remember you are packing up, checking out, checking in and traveling between stops which takes up minimum a half day to all day. Two nights only give you one day of vacation. Too many changes I'd hotels wastes your vacation time.

Oh, and the Lubéron is nice in April though you can still have some Mistral Winds that could ruin any outdoors time.
And Cassis has a lot of good hiking but again beware the Mistral.

Hi there Cal Gal. It sounds like an exciting trip! I think you picked a good time to go, too. The weather will hopefully be decent, but the places you are going shouldn't be mobbed.

I am a just turned 60 traveler and history buff that has been to Europe about 10 times now, usually 3 to 4 weeks at a time. Sometimes just the two of us, sometimes also with teenage kids, and once with another couple. In 2015, we spent two weeks with another couple in Provence, followed by a week (alone) in Paris. I felt like the two weeks in Provence was just enough to really feel like we had experienced the area. My significant other and I are tentatively planning about a 3 1/2 or 4 week trip (Barcelona--Dordogne--Basque country--Barcelona) in September 2020.

In general, I would say people try to do too much when traveling, and see too many things, especially in their first trips (until they learn better). I try to stay a minimum of two nights in each location, and to keep the driving/traveling to a leisurely pace. Each full day traveling to a new location is a day not doing or experiencing. At 30 something, assume you will be back to France again at least several more times in your life. So, my two cents is you are trying to do a bit too much.

I would definitely connect right to Nice on your first day, so your planned ground travel is linear, and one way. In Europe, time is money. In light of the efficiency, the expense of the connecting flight is negligible, really.

Given what there is to do in Nice, and given you will be recovering from jet lag, I would plan on spending at least three, or better 4, nights in Nice, with one of your days there devoted to the trip east, visiting Cap Ferrat (possibly), Monaco and Italy.

Then, I would rent a car and start heading west. Depending on what you want to see and do, I think you could make it as far as the Dordogne (although even that seems to me like pushing it). But trying to travel by land, even one way, to all of the areas you mention strikes me as being too much.

Given your self-description, I think you would enjoy spending time in the Luberon. Low key, hill towns, great markets.

I also think your plan of ending in Paris is good. You can drop the rental car as you come in, if you wind up driving in. Or, even better, drop your car in South France, and take a flight or high speed train to Paris.

I would take the time to figure out exactly what you want to do in Paris, figure out how much time that is going to take, and make sure you get there in time to do all that you want to do. And then spend the rest of your time in South France.

Again, that's just my two cents.

I have been to all the places you plan on visiting, except for Vaux-le-Vicomte. I agree with everyone that you are trying to include too many places on this trip. You will have very little time in each destination, and you will be spending a lot of time packing, unpacking, and traveling to your next destination. As Bets says, too many hotel changes wastes a lot of your vacation time.

I also agree with Bets that for planning purposes, and for us to help you better, you should list your stops as nights, NOT days. And put them in list form. And please let us know how many nights you have on the ground in France.

If you have not made your airline reservations yet, please look into open-jaw or multi-city, where you fly into one city and fly home from another city so that you don't have to backtrack, and so that your reservations are on one ticket. If you miss a flight, the airline is responsible for getting you on the next available flight. So I suggest flying into Nice and flying home from Paris on one ticket. If you have already made your airline reservations RT from CDG, then obviously you can't do this.

For a two-week trip, I recommend 3 "regions", so in this case: French Riviera, Provence, and Paris.

I agree with Matt about connecting to Nice when you arrive at CDG. You can fly from CDG to Nice or take the train. Just make sure you allow yourself enough connecting time in case your flight from the U.S. is late.

Nice - 5 nights
Provence, and I recommend staying in St. Remy - 5 nights
Paris - 6 nights to include your day trip to Versailles

Regarding Paris, hopefully you can convince your husband to visit the D'Orsay, which I think you will love since you were an art history major. It is my favorite museum in Paris. The Orangerie is a small museum that houses Monet's huge waterlilies. If you like sculpture, the Rodin sculpture garden is very interesting, and it's small. I assume your husband doesn't like huge museums, so not sure if you will enjoy the Louvre. But there are other interesting things to do in Paris, and it is such a beautiful city for leisurely wandering and relaxing in cafes. The Luxembourg Gardens are gorgeous!

You don't need a car in Nice. Take the trains or buses to see the coastal cities on your itinerary. That is what we are doing this April.
And I agree with Matt that it is probably easier to return your car in Provence so that you don't have the stress and hassle of trying to return it in Paris. Then you could either fly from Marseille to Paris, or take the train from Avignon to Paris.

You might consider inverting your trip and going into Paris and working your way to Nice. In May, seasonal US-bound flights resume from Nice via Newark with good connections to California on Delta and United. This will also avoid the issue also of trying to drive after a long flight. If you do keep your original itinerary, you can simply take the tram into the city and then pick your car up when you are ready to depart. Any reason drawing you to Finale Ligure? It's an uncommon choice although the coastal hills and highway stretch to Novi is among the best along that route.

To your original question, mid to late April/early May in the Luberon can be very nice. You won't have lavender obviously but might hit the poppies. Crowds will be less and you can do day hiking along the ridge trail or between towns (like Bonnieux to Lacoste or on to Gordes). Things start to re-open after Easter.... so the timing is good if you dislike the crush. A few Aprils backs the market at Gordes was blissfully unpacked and still had stalls of interest.

We just spent a week in Paris with my niece and her boyfriend, both in their senior year of a professional fine arts program. FWIW, I find that when visiting a museum with a large number of masterpieces (Louvre, Orsay) we could only manage 3-4 hours before we were done for the day. Each work has so much information that you're basically cramming a graduate course. In Paris I would schedule no more than one major or two smaller museums per day, then spend the rest sitting in cafes, exploring neighborhoods, and window shopping. You can do either the Orsay/Rodin or Orsay/Orangerie in one day on a combined ticket; just be aware that on Hour Four of world class masterpieces, you might start to feel as though you sprained a muscle in your head.

Thank you all for your helpful insights!

I know this proposed itinerary seems like we are taking it too fast, but that is the purpose. It is really a reconnaissance trip to do further exploration later. Our intention is to get a sample of the different regions and a sense of the country in general to see where we would like to come back to in future leisurely trips.
In essence, it is actually a version of Rick’s recommended 16 day itinerary but we are cutting out Normandy and Carcassonne. (https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/france/itinerary) We plan to do a trip to the northern and eastern areas on a different visit to France.

As far as open jaw trips/one direction, I would have preferred that, but we already have our tickets into and out of Paris. That is why the need to get out of the city to the south as soon as we get there, to make it into an open jaw trip.

Updates to the plan include cutting out the Italian side of the border, as we will definitely be back and it creates too much of a logistical monkey wrench in the works. My husband is an avid mountain biker and Finale Ligure is noted to be #1 in the world for mountain biking. He was lured by being only 1 hour away and wanted to check it out, but that will have to wait for another trip. I think we will take the train to the Riviera for the days we are there and wait to pick up a rental car when we get to Avignon. And we have decided to make the Luberon into one of the day trips we take from Avignon.

Per request here is our refined trip in nights rather than days:
In total 17 nights, 18 days with 1st half day and last day lost to air travel;

2 nights Riviera (Nice)

5 nights in Provence (Avignon)

4 nights in Dordogne (Sarlat)

3 nights in Loire (Amboise)

3 nights in Paris/surrounding area.