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Ile de France in 1 1/2 days-Suggestions please

Posted by on

Hello:
We currently have 1 1/2 days to see the Chartres Cathedral and Versailles.
If possible, we do have an interest in Giverny. It is not as important as Chartres or Versailles to us (these are both high priorities).

We will be in Rouen Friday morning, leaving by noon ---->
Arrive in Chartres about 220p (in time for Anne-Marie Woods tour) --->
Drive to Versailles that evening--->
Visit Chateau Saturday, drop off car at Orly, cab to Paris and hotel (no other plans that night)

I see 3 options for Giverny:
1. Stop and visit on the way to Chartres, missing the guided tour with Ms. Woods (most logistically simple, have to tour on our own)
2. Leave Versailles about 230p and drive to Giverny, getting there about 4p then leave for Paris about 6 (adds a 2 hr drive, not bad)
3. Skip Giverny altogether (always need a good reason to visit again, right?)

Really the 2 questions are:
1. How important is the guided tour of the Cathedral vs self-guided? I am interested in details as well as an overall impression.
2. Can the Chateau realistically be seen in about 5 1/2 hours?

We are a family of five, most of which are new to France.
We will have a car and will be there in July.
I know most see Versailles as a day trip, but it is high season and my group is not great about being up early...so, this is what we decided to do.

Thank you so much for any thoughts.
Jeremy

Posted by
6497 posts

To answer your second question first, I think the Chateau can realistically be visited in half a day, though Saturday will be crowded. Get there when it opens, preferably having bought your tickets online ahead of time. You should have time to see the Chateau itself and some of the gardens, but maybe not the Trianons or Hameau. I understand that there's a "King's Apartments" tour that avoids much of the crowding and maybe waiting time, and is otherwise good, but I have no experience with it. Other posters might, and you could look for it on the Versailles website.

The answer to the first question is really subjective. A good guide always improves the experience at a site. I know Malcolm Miller's tour is excellent, I don't know about Anne-Marie Woods. But is the cathedral with her tour so much better than the cathedral without it that it's worth missing Giverny to get the tour? I'd say not. The RS France guide provides a self-guided cathedral tour in about two pages, or you can get a more thorough English-language guidebook there.

Driving efficiency suggests Option 1 of those you proposed. Via Michelin shows a total driving time under three hours from Rouen to Giverny to Versailles to Orly, in a pretty straight line. Not a problem spread over a day and a half. But you might be able to drop the car in Versailles and take the RER back to Paris, instead of driving to Orly for the same purpose. In that case, you have the whole day at Versailles, or as much of it as you want.

All that said, it looks like a rushed day and a half. For many of us, each of these three destinations would be worth a whole day as a day trip from Paris. You might have a better experience of any two of your three choices by saving the third for another trip.

Posted by
3122 posts

If you book a tour (King's Apartments, Chapel, Opera -- depending what's available that day), be aware that the tour starts at a different location all the way across the courtyard from the normal security entrance. We didn't know that, so we went through security and then had to convince a series of guards to let us hurry "upstream" against the crowd to get out, in order to dash across the courtyard and get to the tour starting point on time.

That said, the tour was wonderful. Highly recommended.

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