Is Chantilly a good base to explore Northern France with a car?

What do you want to visit in "Northern France"?

Chantilly isn't particularly far north. Sights within 90 minutes include the area between Giverny to the west, Amiens to the north west, Laon to the north east and the western reaches of Champagne to the east. Within that area, you will find a few châteaux (Compiègne, Pierrefonds, Chantilly itself, Ecouen, La Roche Guyon), beautiful cathedrals (Amiens, Laon, Beauvais to some extent), a few cute towns and villages but not that many (Senlis, Gerberoy), and some WWI sites (Chemin des Dames comes to mind).

To the south, you have the whole Paris region, where traffic can get nasty.

So, if you're interested in places further north (Lille, Arras...), in Normandy, or in Champagne, Chantilly is not the place for you. It is not easy to pick a single base...

Hi Balso,
Thank you for your response. So if it were up to you, what town would you recommend? Thanks

What do you want to visit in Northern France? What is even "northern France" for you? There is no universal definition for it, and it is hard to suggest a base without this info.
As a starting point, Senlis would be slightly better, because it is a bit larger and closer to the A1 highway for faster travel.

Sorry to not be more exact. We are not sure what area of northern France to choose. We are interested in small and charming villages, with upscale (but can be small) lodging, and wish to stay 3 to 4 hours distance from Brussels for our return flight. All help appreciated. Thanks again.

Well, it is quite tricky, because overall, the part of France that is within a 3-4 hour drive from Brussels does not have a high density of cute towns and villages. There are quite a few, but they are spread out.

By the way, do you have a quote for renting a car in the Netherlands and returning it in Brussels? It might be very expensive to do that, you might want to return the car in the same country where you pick up (renting one car per country if needed).

Hi,

If you are motorised and want to explore northern France, ie, from the Somme to the Belgian border, maybe to Lille, I would suggest staying in Amiens, depending on how much driving you intend to do. If the Somme is too far south, then stay in Arras. Opposite of and next to the train are several hotels, plus the rental car agency.

Numerous towns are worth seeing. Amiens is only one, Arras is another. I would suggest checking out the TI in Arras City Hall, an eye-opener. Northern France is what I call "Germinal" country. The novel and the movie dramatically bring that out.

Northern France is indeed an extremely interesting area, an area I have explored at length and still would go to visit for more.

If WW1 is your interest, this is the place those horrific events took place, The German, British , French cemeteries dot the countryside and small towns, Arras has the main British one. Other nationalities' war cemeteries are the South African, Australian, the US, and the Chinese.

Hi,

I would suggest seeing also the famous chateau Chantilly aside from aspects on the horses, etc Chantilly is absolutely tied in to French history. It was the chateau of the Grande Condé of the Bourbon dynasty, the victor of the decisive battle against the Spanish at Rocroi in 1643 (ie during The Thirty Years War), displacing Spain as the primary military land power.

Since Rocroi was a clear defeat against the major enemy "de la France," you can see the painting depicting the battle in the battle galerie as you view the inside of the Chateau Versailles.

We don't have to explore northern France. Would you guys think that staying in Reims or Metz would be more interesting for exploring small towns and villages. Just to give you an idea of what we like - our favorite place in France was Dordogne River around Sarlat-La-Canega.

Around Reims and Metz not so much.

The most northern part of France with a serious density of cute villages is Normandy and within reasonable reach of Chantilly if that is still on your list. Pierrefonds east of it is off the beaten track and really nice, however the huge castle that dominates the place is a 19th century rebuild. Nevertheless I like the place, not everybody agree with that, just a matter of preference, look if it is of interest for you.

The Alsace region in north-eastern France is dotted with cute places, half timbered houses more German style (has a historical reason). South of Paris the Loire Valley and Burgundy has enough to offer too.

Hi Wil, funny that you were helping me with Netherlands suggestions and now you're helping with France.
I don't have any particular area of France that I need to go. It's just I'll have a car in Brugge and I can return it either in Brussels or in France ( for some reason Hertz doesn't charge me extra for returning in different country). So I'd like to be within 3-4 driving hours from Brussels (from there we'll probably take a Eurostar train to London) and I'm trying to find one or two bases in France within that driving distance. We could also fly to London from Luxembourg (if we would stay in Metz and return the car in Luxembourg). Alsace seems very interesting, but it's about 6 hours from Brugge. Amiens seems like geographically a godd base, but so far we didn't find any nice place to stay there.