France Intinerary Help--Avignon, Nice, ? and Paris

The three nights you have in Avignon and the four nights in Nice are actually fairly short stays (especially Avignon), given the number of interesting destinations in those areas. Since you're going to be depending on public transportation, you won't be moving around Provence terribly fast. Three nights gives you only two full days and some hours. I think you'd be pretty lucky to manage more than two or three other towns in addition to Avignon in that amount of time. Most visitors seem to want to do more in that area.

Threfore, I think you could easily add the undecided days to Avignon and Nice, though that would obviously require some shuffling of accommodations.

The most direct rail route from Nice back to Paris swings west through Marseille. I wonder where you will be before you hit southern France. Could you start in the area around Nice and then go to Provence?

If you don't mind visiting a rather large city before finishing up in Paris, you might consider Lyon. It has a lot of interesting sights. There is excellent and fast rail transportation from Marseille to Lyon and from Lyon to Paris, so stopping in Lyon will only add about an hour of sitting-on-train time.

If time and travel from Nice allowed, for sone variety, I’d suggest the French Alps, but Grenoble is over 7 hours by train, and Chamonix is 16 hours.

So, if 4 1/2 hours to 5 1/2 hours on a train is acceptable, I’ll second France’s second largest city, Lyon, widely considered the food capitol of a food-focused country? There’s the grand old town, with it’s traboule secret passageways, the Croix Rousse silkworkers’ neighborhood way above town, an ancient Roman theater and fine museum, and the Lumiere brothers’ museum, with the 2 men who invented moving pictures!

Nice has a bunch of low cost flights, and so you could always take a flight into another city and then continue onto Paris. For example, to Geneva (Chamonix or Annecy, by car, TGV back to Paris) is a short hop on budget airlines. Lyon or Marseilles do make a practical choice, however. You could also head by train (train des pignes or train des merveilles) and do some hiking from the villages (in the Mercantour), if that appeals. Or, you can also take a train to Hyeres and then go to Porquerolles Island from nearby Giens.

Thank you for the suggestions. I was curious if Lyon was worth a visit.

"I was curious if Lyon was worth a visit."

If you like cities, absolutely - it's my favorite place in France after Paris. Rick has a very good chapter on the city in his France book.

Note that for Avignon and Nice, Rick's Provence and the French Riviera book has much more information than his general France book. So, you'll want to look at, and possibly, buy, both.