Driving around France

"There's so many places we want to see..."

and those would be???

Go!

I suspect/hope nursenezza has 10 days to drive around France in addition to the 5 days in Paris.

It would be very helpful to know when the trip is planned.

If only someone would write a guidebook about France.

Hi Again....
I guess I should have been more specific....
Yes, 10 days in addition to Paris. Yes, I certainly have read RS France.....that's part of the problem- EVERYTHING looks awesome! We definitely want to go to Normandy. How much time should we allow there? Then, where else? Loire, Dordogne, Provence, Languedoc Roussillon, Alsace? Those are places that are standing out for me but I know I'm literally all over the map! And what about the southwestern area, near the Spanish border? Anything interesting in that area? Not sure why that stands out to me, but I wanted to throw that out there too.

What I'm trying to figure out is a logical route, with 3 or so places to visit - starting in Paris (we'll be taking the train from London) drive around for 10 days, then drop the car off back in Paris, where we'll be spending 5 more days. We like museums, castles, etc., but even more we love to just get the feel of new places - walking, beautiful scenery, good local food, etc.

We'll be arriving in France at the beginning of April. So, anyone have some helpful hints, must see/do, favorite places to share?

Thank you!!

I understand that overwhelming feeling that everyplace looks awesome!

OK, starting with Normandy, are you most interested in the WWII beaches? Hotel Logis du Casino in Vierville-sur-Mer is right on the beach and about 10-15 min from the American Cemetery. If you're more interested in Normandy itself, you might prefer to stay in Bayeux as your base. Allow 2 nights, I'd say.

From there you could go west to Mont St-Michel and then south to the Loire Valley -- that would probably be my choice as it would put you in the western end of Loire, not accessible in a day trip from Paris. If you stayed in one of the more western Loire Valley towns (Chinon, for example) you could see several of the chateaux and also drive out to the Bordeaux region for a day.

Alternatively, from Normandy you could go east to Honfleur, Rouen, and head toward Strasbourg. IMO that's less attractive.

Either way you can then end up in the Burgundy region.

I would say don't try to visit the south of France this trip unless you want to make a long haul there straight from Normandy and spend 6-7 days in the south. It's culturally different and a long drive from the north.

With 10 nights available and starting in Paris...

3 nights in Normandy
3 nights in Loire valley
4 nights in Dordogne

Drop car off in Sarlat, Brive, or Limoges and then take a train to Paris.

I suggest you go read trip reports. Search on the areas you are considering. I wrote one from our trip last summer to Normandy, Loire and Paris, for example. The year before we did Paris, Burgundy and some of Provence. I definitely recommend picking a region and exploring it in chunks so you don't spend all your time "getting" to somewhere. I highly recommend Normandy and that area, including Rouen and Bayeux, both of which we loved, as well as Mont St. Michele. I also think it well worth the money to do a private or small group tour of Normady/DDay beaches.

Via Michelin is a very useful planning tool for road trips. It tends to underestimate how long drives take in the real world. And you have to add time for pit stops.

For days 1, 2, and 3, I'd suggest taking a train to Caen, renting a car there, and driving to Bayeux for three nights. Spend a day visiting the cathedral, tapestry, and WWII museum, and another visiting the D-Day beaches. You could drive yourself or take one of the guided tours many on this board recommend (use the Search function).

On day 4 drive to Mont-St-Michel and spend the night there, preferably on the island if you can get (and afford) a room, or else as close to the causeway as you can. You'll have time to see the place in the afternoon and again early in the morning if you want.

Then on day 5 drive to the Loire, someplace like Chinon, or Amboise for a longer drive, and spend three or four nights -- maybe in two different places on either side of Tours, depending on what chateaux you want to see. If you make it four nights, you'll be leaving on day 9. You can head up to Paris directly or via Chartres. Maybe drive on to Vernon (for Giverny) or Versailles for that night, where you can turn in the car and take a train back to Paris on day 10.

Something like that should be doable and enjoyable. Maybe you want to add a day in Normandy to get to places like Rouen or Honfleur, and take it off the Loire or skip MSM. Don't try to cover much more ground, though, save points south for another trip.

As you're planning to drive in France, It's important to note that each driver listed on the rental form must have the compulsory International Driver's Permit, which is used in conjunction with your home D.L. These are valid for one year, and easily obtained at any CAA/AAA office (two Passport-sized photos required, which may be provided by the issuing office). In lieu of the I.D.P. you can also use a notarized translation of your D.L. in French.

I would do Normandy (staying in Bayeux), skip Mont St Michel this trip (love it but not enough time), Loire (staying in Amboise) and Burgundy (staying in Beaune)... 😊

Accept the fact that you Can't see everything and focus on a smaller area. Use the secondary roads for more scenic drives and avoid the tolls on the autoroutes.

I'm not sure where you're from/what kind of weather you're used to. Check historical weather data on wunderground.com to be sure you're OK with what you might get by spending the first half of April in northern France. If you're good with it, fine; you'll be traveling during a period when many sights won't be overrun. Between all the indoor sights in Paris and having a car for the rest, you'll be able to escape bad weather more easily that would someone making a small-town loop by train and bus.

Since you will be there the end of April, I would head south. You could easily spend 10 days in Provence and Languedoc-Roussillon. There is so much to see in both regions, and it will be a little warmer and more spring like. You could take the train from Paris, pick up a car, and fly home from, Nice, Marseille, or Montpellier.

Thank you for all the great ideas! I really appreciate all of the tips! Keep them coming! 😊

If you want to include the south get an open jaw air ticket with Bordeaux, Marseille or similar. We have visited Dordogne and Normandy in 10 days doing that. There's a full and expensive day (tolls + speeding ticket) driving between these areas. Normandy may be dark this time of year.

From my origin, Nice is often the least expensive destination in southern France. Not sure how widely true that is.

My only advice is to get a navigation system in the car. NOT an option to not have one! As we drove around the Loire valley this made ALL THE DIFFERENCE is making driving enjoyable! Learn how to work it, put in your destination, and follow it's directions. ALOT of the country roads are not marked and are hiding behind a curve. True Example: on some of the roads, despite how fast you're flying over the speed limit with a dozen cars piled up behind you waiting their turn to pass you up, and you're looking for an unmarked road to turn left onto, and it's dusk! The navigation made this safer as I knew when to put on my blinker and slow down despite the fact i could not see the road until I was up on it. True Example #2: The road took us through a tiny farm town to continue on the other side of the town. The roads through this town there were not made for cars... yet here we were. Without the navigation system to say 'take a right now... in 50 feet turn left... in 100 feet turn left and make a sharp right.. etc" as it guided us down alleyways-turned-roadway through the village. No way we could have done that ourselves.

Jean-Paul's advice is good -- a GPS helps a lot with driving, combined with a map. I got a Europe map for my own GPS and took it over there. Rental companies will provide them for a charge, but for a ten-day trip buying one, even with an added Europe map, might save you money or at least be a worthwhile investment over multiple trips.

Find out when spring lavender is in bloom in Provence.

Chani, there is no "Spring" Lavender. The Lavender blooms in the Summer - usually sometime in July.

I would just make sure that you're using the car to enjoy the backroads and less so for driving long distances on the Autoroute. I would lean towards heading south and consider flying open-jaws into Nice and home from Paris.

You can spend 2-3 days exploring around Nice without a car, and then rent as you are leaving and enjoy exploring some small towns/villages of Provence by car, possibly making your way as far as the Languedoc, before taking a train back to Paris.

Thank you - everyone!! So much good advice and information! I have been diligently reading, researching, day dreaming about where we want to go. Here's what I'm thinking of so far - I'll throw in a couple of questions too.

Day 1 - train from London to Paris. Stay in Rouen for night 1. QUESTION: Better to rent car in Paris and drive to Rouen or take the train to Rouen and rent a car there?

Day 2 - drive to Bayeux - home base for Normandy visit

Day 3 - Bayeux

Day 4 - drive to Amboise - home base for Loire Valley visit

Day 5 - Amboise

Day 6- drive to Beynac - home base for Dordogne Valley visit.

Day 7 - Dordogne

Day 8 - Dordogne

Day 9 - QUESTION: stay another night in Beynac or maybe some place else in the Eastern Dordogne like Loubressac OR some place halfway back to Paris for a night? If so, where's a good place to stay on the way back to Paris?

Day 10 - drive back to Paris. QUESTION: Better to drive back - I don't mind a long drive - or return the car and take the train back. If so, does it cost a bunch more to return the car to a different town than where we picked it up? Will the train save lots of time?

I actually could add another day for the road trip - which may be wise, considering how much we'd like to do - with some time to relax a bit.

I know this is a lot but I'm ready to start booking some rooms and the info so far has been so helpful!

Thank you!!

Your latest plan makes sense to me, though you won't see a lot of Normandy or the Loire with just two nights and one full sightseeing day in each. Given your pace, you might want to shave a day from the Dordogne and give it to one of these regions. If you can lengthen your trip by another day, as you suggested in your last post, that would be a good idea.

Day 1 question: Car or train from Paris to Rouen? I'd say train, very easy and you avoid Paris and surrounding traffic. The only downside is paying train fares and then car rental on the same day. But apart from that I'd say it's worth it to get out of Paris by rail.

Day 9 question: More time in Dordogne or take two days to get to Paris? I'd say take two days to Paris. Bourges would be a good overnight stop, with an interesting cathedral and historic mansion. Or maybe Orleans.

Day 10 question: Car or train back into Paris? I'd suggest dropping the car at Orly or Versailles or somewhere else to the south with a good train connection into Paris. Same issue as on day 1 -- train fares plus car cost on the same day vs. not having to drive into the big city. It should not cost you any more to drop the car off at a different location within France.

IMHO: I second this idea. Visiting this area of France and spending a night at Mont St Michel. Seeing it at night when the town is empty of day trippers is amazing. If I recall correctly, it wasn't very handicap accessible and there were a few stairs. Nothing extraordinary but something to note if applicable to you.

==>On day 4 drive to Mont-St-Michel and spend the night there, preferably on the island if you can get (and afford) a room, or else as close to the causeway as you can. You'll have time to see the place in the afternoon and again early in the morning if you want. <==

When we drive in Europe we bring our own GPS from home preloaded with hotels, restaurants and attraction addresses that we plan on going to. You pay a bit for the foreign maps but saves so much time and frustration when we are there.

Thank you so much for these latest replies! The info really helped me to formulate a viable plan. It all seemed so overwhelming at first, but now I feel like we've got the makings of a great adventure. I may consider adding a day - maybe another in Normandy or Mont St-Michel, as advised by you nice people! I'm definitely going to pick up our car outside of Paris and I'm still figuring out where to spend the last night and return the car before taking the train back into Paris.....but at least now I have a plan!

It's going to be a new experience to drive in a foreign country, but I'm feeling like it's time to get a bit out of our comfort zone and have the opportunity to see more of the country on our own. All the driving advice has been great!

Thanks again to all of you!!

One important question -- are you comfortable driving stick shift ? Automatic costs more and may be more difficult to find outside major rental locations, so make sure to reserve ahead.

It has been reported that driving out of Rouen is more difficult than driving out of Paris. Maybe train to Bayeux also and rent there?

Might want to check on the pickup and drop charges at various locations (airport, in town, at the train station, etc).
Pickup at the train station in Lyon was a 35 euro upcharge vs pickup at the airport. And then you still have to drive through town to get to the autoroute - an adventure/waste of time. If you don't ask, you may not find out till you return it.

And expect hidden local fees (i.e. 40 euros to send your home address to the gendarmes for a speed-camera speeding ticket); and the ticket (shows up 6 months, or more, later) is all in French. Also, might want to download and study the current list of speed cameras - they target rental cars (yes they do) - or bring and use a radar detector - don't know if they're legal (probably not), but you see very few LEO's on the autoroute.

Might also recommend getting the full deductible (something like that) car rental plan - as the rental person said, 'throw the steering wheel on the counter and walk away - you're good'. And inspect and photograph the car when you pick it up, so there is no question.

Might want to think again about taking the train - will almost certainly be cheaper and as fast or faster.

As Tom Waits says, 'the large print giveth and the fine print taketh away'.

Parisonadime - sigh. So much for my plan to see Provence in the spring.

This is what we did when we went to MSM. We actually drove into Paris from Marne-la-Vallée, France which was truthfully somewhat silly but we wanted to take one train ride in france. Being able to snooze on the way to Caen and on the way back was helpful. Given we were driving in February, I was hesitant to drive a number of hours in potential winter conditions. I don't think that area of France sees much winter driving conditions however. We certainly didn't experience any and it sounds like this won't be an issue for you.

We rented a car from Europcar at the Caen train station which was very easy. The car rental at a Peugeot 508 Standard (SDMR) rate (ended up getting a small VW suv) cost $113 for two days. The drive to MSM from Caen was easy as well. We went to the Normandy beaches and the US military cemetery. We bought a Garmin which was pre-loaded with both Western Europe and North America maps which was very useful. We plan on using the same GPS for our next trip. Our excursion to MSM and this area probably wasn't the most efficient or economical one given our route, but it was definitely one of my favorites.

Departure: Paris St Lazare on Mon, January 19 2015 at 7:07 AM

Arrival: Caen on Mon, January 19 2015 at 8:58 AM

Train: FRENCH JOURNEY3301

Departure: Caen on Tue, January 20 2015 at 5:57 PM

Arrival: Paris St Lazare on Tue, January 20 2015 at 7:45 PM
Train: FRENCH JOURNEY3310

two adults / two children

Fee Price Total
$7.95 $144.00 $151.95

If you decide to drop your car at Orly a taxi into Paris is only 35 euro. We did this in September and it went very smoothly.

If only someone would write a guidebook about France.

Hahahahahahaha! That's crazy talk, you mean people still read and research?

I suppose next you're going to tell me not to use my friendly local travel agent ........

Ok...one last question and I'll try to leave you nice people alone!

Is it better to rent the GPS system from the rental car company rather that just using the GPS on my iPhone? It seems it might be more cost effective to pay for the GPS, rather than burn through all my data.

Is the rental car company's GPS more accurate that my iPhone?

Thanks again!

Ok...one last question and I'll try to leave you nice people alone!

Is it better to rent the GPS system from the rental car company rather that just using the GPS on my iPhone? It seems it might be more cost effective to pay for the GPS, rather than burn through all my data.

Is the rental car company's GPS more accurate that my iPhone?

Thanks again!

I can't address the question of accuracy, never having driven in Europe, but I know some people have mentioned that it was cheaper to buy a GPS with the appropriate maps before leaving home (and have time to use it and get comfortable with it) than to pay the daily rental rate. I don't know whether that would be true on a 10-day rental, but it's worth checking .

We bought a garmin for our last trip a couple of years ago. I use the garmin in my car all of the time in the US. I bought a car a year ago and bagged getting GPS as I use my garmin instead. We are going to use the same garmin for our next trip to france and switzerland this year. The garmin has lifetime western europe and north america map updates.

We still have a couple of copies of physical maps as well. My garmin for some reason turned off last week but I suspect (and hope) it was just a time-out feature. The data charges for using an american cellular phone network even with an international plan would seem cost prohibitive. Some folks suggest downloading the maps on wi-fi and turning the phone off, but this seems to be a risky approach IMHO.

You can save a lot of money by using Google Maps on your smartphone rather than buying/renting a GPS unit. Get a Google account, download your maps while you have Wi-Fi, and then you can use the app when it is offline. It will still give you voice directions and even recalibrate if you make a wrong turn--all while you are offline. See https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838 for more info.