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Ideas for 1st Family trip to France - 14-17 days

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My son is graduation next May and we have decided to take a 2 week+ trip to France. Our last two major trips have been England/Scotland and Germany with similar durations. We have generally planned 3 major cities as hubs with some possible side trips.

This trip is a bit unique in that my son wants to visit Disney Paris so we are allocating 2 1/2 days for that. We have 2 sons who will be 18 and 13. My older son likes the art and history and younger one is more into outdoor activities. Makes for challenging planning.

That being said, we always rent apartments when possible to a more local feeling.

If I know that Paris is probably a planned hub for at least 6-7 days, and we want to fly in and out of Paris, what would be other areas reachable by train that would be good for a family. Also, should we fly into Paris and immediately head out to the countryside and finish our trip in Paris or stay in Paris first then circle back for the flight home?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Posted by
11778 posts

Sounds like fun. Normandy is lovely for history as well as a taste of the countryside. We stayed in Bayeux and loved it. Allocate a day to an escorted D-Day beaches tour.

Another easy-to-reach location is the Alsace. There is some light hiking (more country walking, actually) possible and a completely different feel than Normandy or Paris. If we had it to do over, we’d base in Ribeauville, but be aware that a car is useful here, though not mandatory.

2.5 days seems like a lot of time for Disney Paris...

Posted by
11778 posts

Forgot to mention for your outdoor fan, Chamonix. Lovely high alpine setting. Certainly worth a few nights and no Carr required.

Posted by
7304 posts

Disneyland Paris is either a one-day affair if you're only going to one park, or 1.5-2 days for both (the Studios are smaller), but not 2.5 days. Do stay there if you plan on doing more than one day, as the commute to and from Paris is long.

Posted by
29 posts

Re: Disney Paris the plan was to do Disney one day and animation half of the other with the first day an arrival day.

Thanks for all the info. Need to hit the books and research some ideas

Posted by
882 posts

For a 2-week trip when our daughters graduated from college we did 1 night near Giverny, 5 nights in Normandy, and 8 nights in Paris. That worked really well, and kept travel time to a minimum. If you don't want so much time in Normandy or Paris, then the suggestion of Alsace sounds wonderful, although we haven't been there.

Southern France is also wonderful (we just spent 10 nights in Provence, Gorge du Verdon, and Nice), but if you think you might get back to France, you could save it for another trip.

Posted by
29 posts

So updated the itinerary given we definitely want to see Provence area and Paris. Thoughts?

Fly into Nice, stay two nights then drive to Avignon. 4 days in Avignon with day trips to Nîmes, Aix-au-Provence, and possibly one other. Train from Avignon to Dijon. 3 days in Burgundy area including with half day on first day and half day on the day we head to Paris. 4 1/2 days in Paris and 2 days Disney Paris. Head back.

Total trip from day we leave to day we get back is 18 days. Base cities are Nice, Avignon, Semur-en-Auxois, and Paris.

As we don’t want to travel every day, we will have to miss western France and make it the next time.

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