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Beaune, Reims/Champagne, or other?

Hi everyone,
My husband and I will be traveling to France, Belgium, and the Netherlands in late June/early July. We’ll have a week in France and are planning to spend 4 nights in Paris and 3 nights elsewhere before heading to Belgium (either Bruges or Ghent). My original idea was to start in Paris, then head to Beaune, and then to Belgium. However, I’m thinking that’s doesn’t make the most sense geographically and the travel from Beaune to Bruges (or Ghent) seems like a bit of a pain. I can’t look for train tickets for my exact date yet but from what I can tell, the trip would likely be Beaune-Dijon-Paris-Brussels-Bruges and around 6 hours.

Our goal with going to Beaune was to spend time in a quieter area visiting wineries, the local market, etc... After a bit of quick research, it looks like Reims or somewhere else in the Champagne region would accomplish similar goals and be much more geographically desirable in terms of distance from Paris and Bruges. Before I go too far down the rabbit hole of researching the Champagne area, I was hoping to get feedback on which of the following plans seem to make the most sense. FYI, we will be arriving in Paris via an overnight flight from Toronto. We are flying out of Amsterdam at the end of our trip.

  1. Original plan of Paris - Beaune - Bruges and just deal with the long day of travel
  2. Go to Beaune first straight from CDG, then back to Paris and then to Bruges
  3. Paris - Reims (or elsewhere in the region - suggestions welcome!) - Bruges
  4. Spend an extra night in Paris and just do a day trip to Reims/Champagne region and spend the extra time in Belgium (four nights instead of two).

A couple of FYIs: we are in our early 30s and this will be our second trip to Europe. We enjoy good food, good drinks, outdoor activities, and cultural/historical sights on our travels. Not into the late night party scene. Our French is non existent and although we plan on learning as many basic phrases as possible before our trip, we would like to be able to do things like a wine tour/tasting in English.

Posted by
2168 posts

If you decide you absolutely want to do Beaune, then I'd vote option 2. It has the added advantage of giving you a quieter locale to adjust to the time difference. It sounds like you are not renting a car, so are there wine tours in English in Beaune? You'll find English is spoken by many, so just get the basic polite phrases down. We loved Reims, and their public transportation system makes it easy to access champagne houses. If you can get ahold of a copy of the RS France guidebook, it explains how to get to various cellars/tasting rooms in and around Reims by public transport. If you spend the night in Reims, the cathedral light show is breath-taking. Again, English is widely spoken in Reims, especially as it is a university town.

Posted by
9404 posts

I would choose #1 or #2.
For what it’s worth, we loved Beaune (spent 4 nights there) and intensely disliked Reims. Beaune is a charming, walkable town w wonderful restaurants, cafés, wine shops, fun stores, etc. You can rent bikes and visit some of the gorgeous countryside, as well as the town. We had a rental car and did the 2 scenic routes RS recommends on 2 separate days. They were amazing.
We spent our 3rd day in Beaune and enjoyed everything there.
Reims was not charming at all, depressing actually. I’m a walker and we didn’t find it easily walkable. The Cathedral was fantastic, I have to say.
We enjoyed the tiny museum where the Allies and Germany signed papers ending the war bc my dad was there at some point during that time. But you can see everything there in 30 min or less. We did a Mumm’s champagne house tour that was interesting for the first 30 min, the other 2.5 hrs spent there were not enjoyable.
We very much regretted taking a day from Paris to go to Reims.

Posted by
408 posts

Given the time of year, you might want to consider a bike tour for a day or a few days around Beaune. You'll find English-speaking guides at Bourgogne Evasion (http://burgundybiketour.com) and Hungry Cyclist (http://www.thehungrycyclist.com/cyclingtours). The vintners you meet may not speak English, though, so your guide will have to help you.

Here's an article from The Guardian about Hungry Cyclist: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/jul/26/burgundy-cycling-wine-tour-france

Posted by
10 posts

I haven't been to Beaune, so can't speak to it, but did enjoy a day trip from Paris to Reim. My friend and I (both slightly older than you, and very similar in our interests) prebooked an English tour at Ruinart, which is the oldest Champagne house in the world. I highly recommend the tour as it was informative and super cool! Transportation was very easy between Paris and Reims and we had a lovely day wandering the town. Reims is adorable, but large enough (in my opinion) to warrant at least 2 days. I look forward to returning for a longer stay.

I'm headed back to France later this year for my 5th visit and aside from the time I had to do charades to explain to a pharmacist that I was looking for throat lozenges (the memory still makes me giggle), I've found that basic pleasantries have been fine for speaking almost no French. :D

Posted by
6431 posts

If you're willing to rent a car, you could drive from Beaune to Lille, then get a train on to Bruges via Kortrijk. Dropping the car in Lille saves you the hefty fee you'd pay if you dropped it in Belgium. Bonus -- Reims is on the way from Beaune to Lille. You'd have time to see the cathedral (Susan's right, it's the best thing in Reims) if you want.

See rome2rio.com for logistics of this. According to that website, driving to Bruges is faster than any other choice. But the train from Lille will save you dropoff costs. FYI it also shows a train from Dijon to Lille that bypasses Paris, saving you having to change stations there.

Posted by
2 posts

Are you willing to let go of Bruges? it is a beautiful city but quite out of the way for your journey. I am living in Belgium right now so I can say that it is the #1 popular city for tourists in the country, which makes it overrun at times. Spend the extra time you have in Amsterdam.