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Follow up - France trip advise needed.

Posted by (San Francisco) on

Original post: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/france-trip-advise-needed
TL;DR:
We land at CDG at 10am and originally planned to drive straight to Rouen, then visit Mont St-Michel on Day 2, Amboise on Day 3 + Day 4 morning and then head to Paris in the afternoon for the next three days on Day 4. With senior parents, I'm rethinking this due to jet lag and fatigue. Wondering if we should instead stay in Paris for the first 3 days, then do Rouen > MSM > Amboise.

Follow-Up question:
If we stay in Paris after landing as some of you are suggesting in my previous post, we're planning to visit Versailles on Day 3. Would it make more sense to head to Rouen directly after visiting Versailles, rather than returning to Paris and leaving for Rouen the next morning (Day 4)? This slightly shortens our time in Paris, but might make things a bit smoother.

Alternatively, do you think it’s feasible to drive from Paris to Rouen on Day 4, start early in the morning, pick up rental car at porte maillot around 8am (or take an early morning train to Rouen and pick up a rental in Rouen around 4pm) and then continue to Mont St Michel? It does sound like a very long travel day, so I am wondering if anyone has done this before.

Posted by
1375 posts

Ami, are you planning on siteseeing in Rouen, or is this just sort of a transportation way station?

Posted by
54 posts

Hi KD, even if we go to Rouen directly from Versailles, and have a few hours in the evening to explore, we would only like to roam around the town, but we will skip churches and museums.
If we go there next day, we would like to stop at Rouen just for lunch (and may be pick up our rental car if we are renting it from there, instead of from porte maillot). Rouen looks like a cute little town, with half timbered houses, so even two hours there would be enough for us.

Posted by
1375 posts

Ami, the reason I ask is it's seems like a random out of the way place to go for 2 hours. Rouen is lovely and we spent a few nights there, so I'm very much a Rouen fan but it seems like a lot of time and an inefficient place to go to get to MSM.

You do have luggage issues with Versailles if you plan to go on from there (unless you plan on having a car and feel ok with things locked in a trunk, which you would want to confirm you have.)

Why not take the train from Paris to Rennes and pick up the car in Rennes. Drive to MSM. Then on to Amboise and return to Paris.
OR Paris train to Amboise (I"m not familiar with Amboise) pick up a car there, then to MSM. Return the car in Rennes and take the train back to Paris.
OR even take the train to Caen pick up a rental car drive to MSM. Then on to Amboise.

Anyway, just things to consider.

Posted by
54 posts

Ah, I see, thanks for the information. We chose Rouen because, after watching Rick Steves and other travel videos, we felt that if we were to visit just one of Rouen, Honfleur, and Bayeux, it would be Rouen. We had also originally planned to visit Colmar, but had to cut it when we shortened our trip from three weeks to two. Since from videos, Rouen reminded me a bit of Colmar, it felt like a nice alternative.

Posted by
54 posts

luggage issues with Versailles

Could you please elaborate on that? I kinda assumed it wouldn't be too hard to find luggage storage in Versailles via nannybag. Haven't looked at it, but I thought even train station would have some lockers.

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