Italy to France with 3 teens - 16 days

We took a trip from Italy to Provence with our two teenagers and found that it was a little boring for them (except for the time we spent in Cannes at the beach). While Provence offers a lot in the way of wineries/scenery/laid-back lounging/people watching, there wasn't a lot to keep our teenagers interested. We spent a few days in Aix and Avignon taking day trips from both. If we had to do it over again with kids, we would concentrate on the beach towns (Cannes/Nice).

One of my pet theories about travel is that contrasts make for vivid memories. On that basis your plan to fly to Geneva sounds pretty good! But only if you can plot a route into the Alps from there, and then comfortably to Paris.

I wonder if you couldn't fly to Paris and spend the time touring Normandy. That would be a contrast! Or for that matter Amsterdam or London.

However, south of France is good too, and really not very like Rome or Florence. Your stopover in Nice idea is not bad, but only because it is so hard to get from Italy into France. So just overnight.

If you want to see Provence, I would move the next day to the Rhone Valley, not to Aix. Not to Avignon, either, but to a smaller town near the Rhone. Rent a car there and tour about.

Why not Aix: Despite a lot of charm, it is too far from stuff and there's not much to see and do there.
Why not Avignon: It's overrated compared to Arles, St. Remy, etc.

Don't go to Provence if you kids would not like to climb on Roman ruins in Arles or Orange or see medieval siege engines in Les Baux or visit the WWII resistance museum in Fontaine de Vaucluse.

I like Adam's theory about contrasts. Our trip with our three kids (teen and older) involved a combo of Paris, Versailles area with friends, back to Paris, train to Luzern, time in Engelberg with a snowy mountaintop in July highlight, ending with 3 days in Luzern, then flying home from Zurich. We had big city and beautiful serene countryside in both countries. We considered Geneva first, but really wanted the snow so switched to Luzern. After the hustle and bustle of Paris, all of us really liked the natural beauty of Engelberg, and overall LOVED Switzerland. It was really expensive, though, so next time we'd like to explore the French or Austrian Alps regions.

We traveled by train everywhere except when with our friends outside of Paris, and found it to be easy and comfortable. The Swiss train system was as terrific as we'd heard! :-) We booked the TGV Lyria 3 months in advance through captainetrain from Paris to Basel, but initially considered Paris to Geneva. Once in Switzerland we bought the half fare pass, and our teen traveled free.

It sounds like you have some wonderful options, and it will be great for your kids to be able to use their French as you travel.

Have a great trip!
Laurie

Thank you for the replys! I'd like to stay with France so the kids have another experience outside of Paris. We might extend our Paris stay a few more days to do a day trip somewhere.
If we go to Nice from Cinque Terre, are there any stops between Nice and Paris to give the kids a French country/village experience? Would not like to spend more that 4 hours traveling a day:)

The difficulty with seeking a rural experience between Nice and Paris is that the only rapid (5 - 7 hours) way to make that trip is by TGV, a very fast train with limited stops. There are a few stops along the coast, a possible stop in Aix-en-Provence, a stop in Avignon, then nothing all the way to Paris. The non-TGV route takes--if you can believe it--about 15 hours.

So your options are:

• Side-trip from Paris
• Side-trip from Nice
• Taking a local (non-TGV) train out of Paris to a suitable spot then returning to Paris to get the TGV to Nice
• Taking the TGG all the way to Avignon (or Aix), then backtracking on a local train

Any of these approaches could bear fruit. The first two would avoid one hotel change, so I'd look at possibilities not too far from Paris, Aix or Avignon. I have no personal recommendation to offer, but a good guidebook to France should be useful here.

A village experience can be had but you will need a car. Some candidates would be a Luberon town or one of the charming small towns in Burgundy.

Both should be lovely in July, but it is not too early to make arrangements if that is what you want to do.

You will likely wish you gave Paris more than three days . Really .

You and I are doing almost the EXACT same trip, with the exact same family configuration (my 3 are 9, 12, and 14). We are flying in to Paris end of June, driving through France en route to Rome, through Florence and Cinque Terra. Are you doing all your travel by train? For small French village experience, you could (if you are traveling by train) rent a car in Nice and drop it off in Nimes, and stay in a village in the Provence area (there are many to choose from: Isle-sur-la-sorgue, St Remy, etc. The drive is approximately 3 hours from Nice to Provence. Then in Nimes you can catch the TGV to Paris. I was in Paris last year with my then 13yo daughter. We spent 4 nights and that was plenty to do all that we wanted. I planned 2 activities a day and that left a lot of time to wander around. We did Notre Dame, Eiffel, Louve, Musee Orsay (loved), Rodin museum, Luxembourg Gardens, and walked EVERYWHERE (we actually bought metro tickets that we never used because we walked, which resulted in us seeing things we hadn't "planned"). We stayed in an airbnb across the street from Notre Dame. This year, I am bringing the rest of the family and we will start in Paris and stay in a place right next to Rue Cler, specifically so that finding food is easy (with 3 kids, I don't want to have to find a restaurant 3 meals a day, and the Ruie Cler is an easy market to find prepared meals or groceries). I agree about the idea of contrasts, but for me, immersion also has value (to stay long enough in place to feel at home, which remarkably, I felt after 5 days in Paris). But in the interest of contrast, I like to alternate urban with rural. I know that is not always possible - going from the Cinque Terra to Provence for example, but Nice could count as urban in that case, considering its size. Or alternate activities (beach/swimming, ruins, hiking, art, etc).

I would be very interested to hear more about your Italy leg of the trip, as that is what Im planning now. I may private message you, if you don't mind