Help with paring down / travel Itinerary outside of Paris during Olympics

If you'd like to head to an area where you will have little risk of persistent, miserably-hot days, you could go to Normandy and/or Brittany. A car is helpful for visiting some of the smallest places in those areas, but I was able to see a lot via trains and buses.

We did 4 nights in St. Malo and one night in Auray for the Neolithic sites (I hired a guide for that since we didn't have a car) -- it was easy to visit places like Dinan and Dinard, walk to St. Servan etc. There is a bus to MSM once a day and return in summer. And a great beach for swimming. We had an apartment within the walls. There are excellent restaurants and touristy ones. You need to do some research and reserve the good ones as they are tiny.
https://janettravels.wordpress.com/category/brittany/
In summer there is boat to Dinan and of course there is a boat to Dinard.

I like the idea of basing in an area rather than rushing from one end of the country to the other. We also did a side trip from Paris to Annecy and it was lovely too. You are better off with a car in this area, but we managed without -- but also just hung out in Annecy which was fine for us but most people would want to see more and get around more.
https://janettravels.wordpress.com/2023/03/27/quick-trip-up-the-aiquille-du-midi-chamonix/

Thanks for your reply. I do keep reading it is miserably hot in the south of France in the summer but then we look at the weather averages and it doesn't look so terrible. We are coming from North Carolina where we are used to 95+ in the summers, but also don't want to spend 2 weeks melting if it will be the same there, on top of extremely crowded.

We did our Italy trip in April which was a little cool for me but great for hiking, etc.

Perhaps we need to go back to the drawing board and rethink entirely....

Please tell us if this is your first trip to Europe. You have a list of places all over France, as if you are hitting a couple of Malls at home in December. These places are hours apart, with time overhead for changing hotel rooms so often. Have you looked at Google Maps to get some ballpark distance and time estimates? Do you know that a lot of rooms in France do not have A/C, and if they do, it won't be as strong as in NC.

There are plussesvand minuses for both train travel and car rental. Which way are you leaning?

I would nix anywhere in southern France, but then I hate hot weather. Even if you are used to hot temperatures, do you want to spend money to sweat all day, especially if you are thinking about being outdoors? It’s totally your call.

I think Normandy and Brittany would make a fabulous trip. You are also close to Switzerland— would you consider that? Possibly in combination with Colmar.

Hi Tim, it's not our first trip - I have gone for months at time in my younger years (i.e. 25 years ago) and with kids just to Ireland and Italy staying in the same region generally (other than traveling say from Dublin to Cork to visit family but then staying in that region).
Usually when we travel we will stay 2 nights in a big city and perhaps 1-2 other places for 3-5 nights each day tripping from there if that makes sense.

I absolutely agree we are all over the place and it is not realistic/feasible nor enjoyable to attempt to tackle all of this. We just have been dreaming of France and all of the places I listed look spectacular. The point of this post is to help me narrow it down. Normally we stay in one region, or perhaps 2 with a longer transit in between being OK since we will be there 14 days. These responses are the needed reality check.

You all are convincing me the south will be hot and sweaty! :) And to turn our attention north or west..we would be open northern or eastern france for sure or even to combining with Switzerland. We were deciding between Slovenia or Austria before these incredibly affordable direct flights to Paris popped up.

We have a slight preference for trains, but will happily rent a car for a portion of the trip. (But not in a bigger city because I ended up in a roundabout in Florence 10 years ago that I think it took 2 years for me to get out of lol).

Time to do more research.

I am a native North Carolinian. I've lived the last 50 years in Washington DC, which--believe me--isn't really any better, weather-wise. There is a huge difference between living in a hot part of the US with everything air-conditioned to the level of sub-frigid and being a tourist in a hot part of Europe in the summer. Unless you have serious gardening or golfing hobby, you will spend a lot more time outdoors in Europe than you do at home. Furthermore, some of the indoor sights you want to see will probably not be air conditioned; others will be barely air conditioned. People have joked about being so hot they've sought out a grocery store so they could hang out in the frozen-food aisle, but it's not really a joke.

Annecy is beautiful, but it's near the mountains, not in them. I would not return there in summer. I was very, very happy I had booked an air-conditioned hotel, but being outdoors was a trial, except for a short boat ride on the lake. You could go to somewhere at altitude and have perfectly fine weather, but I haven't done that in France, so I can't suggest anywhere in particular. It appears Chamonix isn't high enough to reliably escape the summer heat:

Chamonix weather -- July 2023

That link goes to the website timeanddate.com, which I use regularly to answer the question, "How bad could the weather be?" It shows actual, historical, day-by-day weather statistics for most places tourists go. I like to check the most recent five years' data. Use the pull-down box at the right, just above the graph, to change the month and year displayed. Use the Search box at the upper right to see statistics for other places.

There are lovely towns and cities all over France, including the usually-cool north coast and northern part of the west coast. Here are a couple of examples:

Photos of Quimper, Brittany: https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=photos%20quimper&form=IQFRML&first=1

Photos of Rouen, Normandy: https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=photos%20rouen&form=IQFRML&first=1

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/recommended-side-trips-in-france-with-no-car

Here is an out of the box idea....what about taking a train to Germany or Belguim and seeing that area instead of France? I say that because I am going to the Olympics and lots of people in the Facebook groups I am in are planning to do just what you are doing...daytrips outside of Paris to sight see in-between their Olympic events. Many people (including me) are flying into Amsterdam, Brussels or Frankfurt and training over to Paris because flights were cheaper. You might find some of these destinations in France over run with Olympic tourists. Also, I would suggest checking the schedule and seeing what events are happening your first and last days that you will be in Paris. Tickets are mostly sold out but you could perhaps catch an event like Football or a street race (cycling, marathon) that are free or still easy to get (football). Hope you have a great trip!!

thanks for all of the different suggestions and Charles, that is an interesting idea for consideration. Our direct flight gets us there 6 hours than we usually would to get to Europe with a stop, so an extra leg is not a big deal. Which is why we were OK wth a trek to the south, but the consensus is it will be hot and very crowded). With our initial excitement on France its a little sad to switch gears, but no doubt we will enjoy wherever we land.

You mentioned Austria. We were in Salzburg, Austria and surrounding area during a pre-covid summer, and it was very hot.