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France Trip

Hi
I'm in the early planning stage of a holiday down the east French boarder with my girlfriend.

We are planning to go away for 10 days and will be traveling exclusively by train (when in France, we will fly there and back).

This is what we have planned so far:

Strasbourg - 1 day Colmar - 1 day Lyon - 3 days Annecy - 4 days Accumulated Travel - 1 day

Of course this is just a rough idea and some evenings will be spent on trains but do you think we have allocated our time wisely.

I know 4 days in Annecy may be a lot to some but for us this is our most anticipated destination and we want to enjoy a more relaxed time near the end of the trip. If anyone recommends spending more time in either Strasbourg or Colmar, I would be happy to take time out of visiting Lyon as I'm sure 2 days there will be satisfactory as well.

Any info would be greatly appreciated as this will be our first trip with multiple destinations and lots of public transport!

Thanks guys!

Posted by
373 posts

many people (including me) try to avoid one nite stays. If I read your schedule right you are spending one nite in Strasbourg and the next night in Colmar. We visited Colmar as a daytrip and felt like we were able to see everything. Actually I think there's lots to see in Strasbourg since it is moderate sized city with attractive plazas and streets (look at some of the videos on YouTube), so I would spend 2 days there and drop Colmar. And if you stay in Strasbourg for 2 nites this becomes a decision you can make on the fly; you can look up the daytrip train schedules now and then decide after the first day in Strasbourg whether you feel you've seen enough and want to go on to Colmar the next day, or if you want a 2nd day in Strasbourg.

Posted by
6773 posts

Fully agree with the suggestion to stay in Strasbourg for two nights.
Also, where do you fly out of? Is flying out of Geneva a possibility for you? Because if you have Paris in mind, you will have to spend the last night there.

Posted by
1231 posts

I am the opposite. I would rather stay in Colmar for 2 nights, and visit Strasbourg, as a day trip. I don't like one night stays, too much wasted time getting there, checking in and out, etc.

Posted by
10177 posts

I’m in Lyon right now. Coming from Germany we spent 1 night in Strasbourg and 4 nights in Colmar, but we had a car for 2 days in Colmar to visit the wine villages. That gave us one full day just for Colmar. I would daytrip from Colmar to Strasbourg just for transportation purposes since you will be going south from there. One night stays aren’t ideal, so you you may want to consider a day trip from one to the other. What is your arrival city? We are in Lyon for 4 nights before we go to Nice. There is a lot to do here. You should consider planning your time by nights as opposed to days to get a true representation of how much time you have. For example, our 4 nights in Lyon gives us 3 full days.

Posted by
171 posts

I agree with staying in Colmar longer. It is wonderful and if you like to bike it is fantastic to bike the route de vin and see all of the storybook villages. You can take the train easily into Strasbourg for the day. Colmar and surrounding area was one of our favorite cities anywhere is Europe.

Posted by
9 posts

We've also considered squeezing in a day to go to Normandy to see the D-Day beaches before heading to the Alps. I realize this would probably cut out a day and half and might be too ambitious. I'm finding it difficult to prioritize as France has so much to offer!

Considering that we are flying into Paris and out of Nice, is there a better 10 day itinerary than what I've come up with? We're open to nearly any experiences (culture, history, hiking, etc).
I was originally looking for something with a direct view of the tower, but then I realized how narrow minded I was being.
That view looks phenomenal, if it's real.

Posted by
26829 posts

I understand how interesting France is (two long trips to the country, in 2017 and 2019), but you are trying to do way too much and are at risk of going home with more memories of what you've seen through the windows of trains and buses than of things you've actually experienced.

Do not even think about the D-Day sites.

Annecy is very pretty; I've traveled in Europe a lot, and it's one of the prettiest places I've seen. It's nice to take one of the boat rides offered on the lake, and you can rent bikes to ride around. The historic center of town is very picturesque. But because of its beauty, Annecy gets very heavy tourist traffic. The center of town can be extremely crowded during day-tripping hours, but I didn't have an issue with it out by the lake in 2017.

I must say that spending 4 days in Annecy on a first trip to France when you have only 10 days available is an extremely unusual use of time. I am suppressing the urge to state my opinion more firmly than that.

Posted by
6773 posts

If you fly out of Nice, you need to spend at least one night there, and it would be a waste of travel time not to take the opportunity to visit Nice, for a bare minimum of 2 nights and preferably 3-4 (many day trips in the area!).
Annecy to Nice takes about 7 hours by train, so, personally I would skip Annecy... or change my flight to fly out of Geneva or Lyon.

Posted by
10177 posts

I’m in France now. I’ve been here for just over 3 weeks and I have 3 more days to go. This is my 7th trip to France. I’ve always wanted to go to Annecy and have not been yet. Travelers have to prioritize their time because it’s impossible to see it all. I would say maybe next time, but I’ll be in France for 3 weeks in October and will be on the west side. This is my way of saying that we can’t always see everything we want and 10 days is very little time. It goes by faster than you think. Only you can decide your own priorities though.