Another city to add for a second week to a Paris trip.

Colmar is 2.5 hours by train from Paris. Take a boat along the canal. Rent bikes. Visit castle ruins. Take the train to Strasbourg. Check out EuropaPark nearby in Rust, Germany. Visit the villages near Colmar that inspired the village in Beauty & the Beast.

https://www.sncf-connect.com/en-en/article/top-5-des-plus-beaux-villages-d-alsace

In the past we have combined Paris with Burgundy and stayed in Beaune, Normandy, stayed in Honfleur and Bayeux. Paris with Provence, several bases, with Nice, a huge favorite of ours, a city with great day trips by public transit.. With Strasbourg, a beautiful city and has canal boats too. The wine villages outside of Strasbourg are small and charming, thatched roofs. We didn’t care for Colmar, though, and many who post here like it. We had to cancel to cancel a trip to Paris and Brittany which offers so much. Take a look at Brittany, Dinard, Dinan, Quimper , The Rose Granite Coast with its beaches.

Brittany's very interesting, and you can get to Rennes in about 1-1/2 hours by train. Rennes is awfully small for a week, though. Western Brittany would be beyond your 2-hour limit, I think.

I liked Lyon a lot and look forward to returning, but I'll make the same comment here I did a few days ago when someone with limited time suggested he or she might pair Lyon with Paris: Lyon may feel too much like a smaller version of Paris, where you will have just been. But the city has lots to offer.

I liked Colmar (yes, it's touristy during day-tripping hours), Rouen and Troyes; the latter gets very few non-French tourists. However, seven days is a long time.

Positive comments on the forum have moved Le Mans up on my "Next Time in France" list, but I haven't been there myself.

What time of year is the trip?

thanks for all the info as always- sorta my thoughts- feel free to tell me if I have anything wrong.

The reason i sorta limited it to two hours - is that I hate to waste more time in travel - if I could do an open jaw flight, I would be willing to go further, but don't really want to lose a half a day going there, and then another one coming back to Paris.

Colomor - I am seeing 3+ hours via train to CDG- plus I would have to do that twice - looks like a cool city thou- maybe on another trip where we go in or out of Zurich.

Beaune - I am also seeing 3+ hours via train to CDG? is that right? I am using google maps

Honfleur - 4 hours - multiple connections?

Provence or Nice - looked at Nice as a two week trip on its own- but unless you do the overnight train - it is gonna be a long haul (or a short flight)

Strasbourg - within that 2 hour range via train , I will look into it some more

Rennes - the population isn't that small, but that doesn't necessarily mean we will have things to do - if there were a couple of day trips? I am not familiar with the town, so will look into it.

Lyon- if you say it is just like a smaller paris, I might lean to Belgium instead - I like the idea of getting something different? At least I cold fly out of Lyon thou.

I will keep looking into some of these places- thanks again

Are you open to renting a car at your second destination? If so, consider the Loire, easily reached by train from Paris, full of castles and countryside, good food, and also has the Zoo Parc de Beauval, which bills itself (modestly) as "the 4th most beautiful zoo in the world." Amboise and Chinon are popular bases with this crowd. Tours is a bigger city between them, and nearby St-Pierre-de-Corps has fast train service to/from Paris and also CDG.

If you don't want to drive, you're looking for a city within two train hours of Paris that's small enough to be a contrast but big enough to occupy you for up to a week. There's a tension between those goals. Maybe more than a week in Paris, and less than a week in smaller-scale destination #2 with no car.

From Rennes you can day trip to the attractive smaller towns of Vitre (southeast or Rennes) and Fougeres (northeast of Rennes). It looks like there's decent rail service to Vitre, taking in some cases less than 30 minutes, but the train station isn't right in the historic center. The train to Fougeres is closer to 1-1/2 hours, so that would be a less desirable day trip. Unfortunately, the train station in Rennes is not right in the old town, either. There may well be other good side trips from Rennes; those are just the two towns I went to.

photos of Vitre from Google

Depends on tine of year. I'd fly into Paris and then take the train that afternoon to Lyon and base there and finish with the week in Paris. OR. fly into Paris and take the train to St. Malo and base there and use buses and trains and boats in the area to visit Dinan, Mont St. Michel, Dinard etc. Then return to Paris and finish there,. Get an apartment in each base.

thanks again all

@Dick - normally I am all for renting a car, but honestly I think for this trip I want to avoid it, simply because I don't feel like doing a lot of driving around - Loire valley looks stunning, but not sure the 4 year old will make touring the Chateau's fun - will she really be entertained enough to make the tours enjoyable for all of us?

I get completely there is major tension between my goals - and that is what I reached out because I know the experts here know infinitely more about France than I!! I am not dead set one 7 days in each, I could easily do 6/8 or 5/9, etc.

@acraven - Rennes looks beautiful from the few pictures. I can actually fly open jaw into it with one connection (which is rare for RDU) then train to paris, then fly home. I am definitely going to check it out.

With Paris being the huge metropolitan city, the thought of just something a tad smaller, with a little more historical charm interests me. Even if our schedule isn't packed from dawn to dusk with activities.

Definitely plan on getting an apartment - not that I want to cook all my own meals - I mean we are in france! But for quick snacks or a little more room with the 4 of us.

Thanks again all

How about Reims? It's a quick 90-minute train ride. I've only neem to Lille once - it seemed very walkable and "residential" not to touristy. Lille would give you the chance to visit Belgium as well as some WW sites in Dunkirk and of course the beach.

"...with a little more historical charm...." How about Fontainebleau with its famous Chateau de Fontainebleau.?

A thought- why not take the Eurostar to London for your 2nd week?
What about spending a day at Disney Paris for your little girl?
Fontainebleau is a good idea too- there is a little tourist train or a horse drawn carriage ride around the grounds that she might like.
I suspect you've searched for ideas for visiting France with kids, but here's a link anyhow:
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/france-with-kids

We loved Ghent. Easy train ride to Bruges for a day, which was all that our family needed there.
Train connection from/to Paris is through Brussels and very easy.
I'm not sure about apartment availability since we stayed at a fantastic hotel.
Now all that I can think about are the waffles from the stand in the Ghent train station.

You have a lot of good advice. We spent several weeks in Paris. Changing sides (Right Bank/Left Bank) to break things up a bit. We spent a few days in Chaville just outside Paris in a top floor Air BnB. It was awesome. The grocery store was across the street. The somelier knew us by sight & was eager to take us around the store. Nice little forested area with trails. We were eating some lunch on a park bench. Food was from an open air market. as we are eating amazing food we look across the street at a Boulangerie that had several awards posted on the exterior. Unbelievable. Maybe just spend a few days just outside Paris after changing neighborhoods. We felt like we spent a few days as a slice of life there in Chaville.
We did not have this planned. Just got to the end of our stay in Paris & started looking at Air BnBs

We were in Lyon for the first time last year at this time and we thoroughly enjoyed it. On a past trip we did Bruges- it was magical. You won’t go wrong with either choice.

Just scanned this post quickly, but your times and connections to various cities are incorrect (Colmar, Honfleur, and likely others). I suspect you are looking at trains many months in the future, before they have released the whole schedule. Honfleur and Rennes are about an hour each and are direct trains. But you have to look no more than a couple of months ahead of your travel to see these options.