My partner and I plan to rent a car and travel through France for about a month from Oct/Nov in 2021 (fingers crossed!). I have Rick Steve's guidebook and am basing our trip on his suggested itinerary, excluding Paris (we've been several times already) and with some extra side excursions and a slower pace. However, we think we would like to start in Nice and work our way clockwise via Provence, Carcassonne, the Loire valley and Normandy. We may skip the Alps as we would like to return to that region on another trip---
My question is--should we start south in Nice, or follow the itinerary as set out in the North? We'd like to catch a bit of warmer weather (we are Canadian, so anything above 55 degrees is 'nice' for us!) at the tail end of Fall and are not sure which direction would optimize the weather window for us.
Also--we'd like to visit the region of Burgandy and the city of Colmar, but are not sure if this area will have much happening at that time of year (late November).
Any advice for itinerary planning would be much appreciated!