Itinerary help - Paris, WW2/Normandy & Possibly Loire

I would not drive the first day. We did something similar to your beginning itinerary im 2018. Flew in early am, drove to Giverney, and then on to Rouen where we spent the night. I underestimated how much the jet lag would affect my father and I. We were both falling asleep and there was one near drift off the road. Not to mention even driving the outer ring of Paris on little sleep is quite stressful during the 9 am rush. Consider a reversal with Paris first. All the coffee in the world didn’t keep us from being sleepy. It’s one thing to be active and forcing yourself to be awake. It’s quite another to be sitting in a car.

I’ll come back later on the computer to type out what we did over an 8 day period for you to give you an idea of what might be feasible for you. Going all the way to Bayeaux on the first day is also pushing it. We arrived on the second day after a stop at the Abbey de Jumiege (amazing) and Honfleur.

Can't give a lot of advice on getting place to place with a car - but do NOT nap (plus it's almost impossible to keep it short)! Stay on your feet - outside if possible. You may be slap-happy by the end of a day, but you'll have pushed your body to be closer to approximately the right time zone. My daughter almost fell asleep in her pasta the first night - but we managed an early dinner and early bed. The 12 year old may struggle more than the adults - my then 10 year old had much more trouble with jet lag as a young'un than later. The excitement of being in Paris may be enough to keep everyone awake. (and you'll hear a lot of people begging you not to drive after an overnight flight)

I forgot to note that we would really like to be in Paris on Friday for the Galeries Lafayette fashion show, at 3pm, I believe. So need to be back by noon Friday, I would think.

Day 1 of option #1 was giving me serious anxiety. Option 2 is much better. For the car rental, take a taxi to Orly and pick up the car there. The drive to Bayeux is easy from Orly. You could stop in Rouen on the way to see the cathedral.

Bayeux is such a cute town, with lots of photo ops and little boutiques. I think you’re right to skip MSM and Loire.

Return the car to Orly and taxi to your hotel.

Rick's itinerary suggestions never make sense to me; they are too rushed. I would not enjoy moving from place to place and leaving every one of them feeling I had seen only half the things on my list (or fewer). I heartily concur with the idea to postpone Mont-St-Michel until a later trip. There are some lovely places nearby that justify several days in that area of Normandy/Brittany.

I can't imagine driving after an overnight flight, but I also don't like the idea of splitting your Paris time on such a short trip. Rouen is a lovely city (large center rebuilt in the historic style after wartime destruction). You could take a train there on your arrival day, walk around to try to beat the jetlag, and pick up the car on Day 2. If you had time you could spend a full, non-jetlagged day in Rouen. In addition to the lovely architecture and cathedral it has some good museums.

I highly, highly recommend taking a D-Day tour rather than just driving yourself around, assuming none of you is a WWII expert. The tours offered by companies like Overlord will assure that you see a lot of key sights with helpful explanations along the way from a driver/guide. The invasion area is large, and you'll almost certainly waste time if you try to navigate by yourselves. Furthermore, it's likely that some of what you see will just look like any old beaches and chunks of concrete without a guide's input. Most if not all the Bayeux-based D-Day tour companies use vans rather than large buses, so you won't be herded around in a group of 40. I think you'll find the cost of a full-day tour is just over 100 euros per person.

My Overlord tour took a lunch break at St-Mere-Eglise. We had time (if we bought a pre-made sandwich) for a quick visit to the Airborne Museum. The Museum of the Battle of Normandy in Bayeux is modern and much more comprehensive. I found it both educational and interesting, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised about how much it interests you and your daughters.

The cathedral and the historic center of Bayeux are also worthwhile. It doesn't take long to see the tapestry, but its importance is certainly more historical than artistic. There's also a very small lace-making museum.

You could go to Versailles on day 1 and visit, sleep there and rent car day 2 and make your drive. Return car at Versailles and train into Paris to finish.

If you want WWII you could train it out to Bayeux and stay overnight, take a guided tour of the beaches and see the museum in Bayeux as well as the cathedral and tapestry if you want. Then train it back to Paris and see Versailles on a day trip and the rest for Paris.

I am not suggesting that the Loire chateaux are insignificant, but we put that off to our seventh trip to France. You don't have a full day to waste driving from MSM to the Loire, finding out all the potential stops along the way take 1/2 hour to get off the highway and into town so you don't do them.

Besides Versailles, there are great interiors in Paris, and you could settle for Chateau Chantilly.

Please buy or "Library" our host's advice for First Trip To Europe (even better, buy his France book, but the general advice is in all of them) and revise your arrival day to something realistic. I'd consider two stays in Paris.

As you can tell, there are a lot of different ways to do this. I do think your current plans are too much - you’re going to get burnt out and stop enjoying it. I especially think option 1 day 1 is too aggressive. My mom, sister, and I drove from CDG to Honfleur and onto Bayeux after overnight flights in business class (so we had all slept) and we were STILL exhausted. I was the only one who would drive and I needed my sister to talk to me nonstop to keep me awake during the Honfleur to Bayeux leg. If you haven’t travelled internationally much/at all, I wouldn’t take this gamble as you just don’t know how you’ll feel.

What about something like this:

Days 1-4: Paris; do Versailles as a day trip by train one of these days
Day 5: pick up rental car, Rouen, Honfleur? (See comment below), arrive for the night in Bayeux
Day 6: WWII tour of Normandy beaches (very worth hiring a private guide for this experience, will make it much more engaging and bring it to life); can do some exploring of Bayeux in late afternoon/evening
Day 7: Drive early AM to Amboise; see one chateau, explore Amboise
Day 8: Two chateaux; head back to Paris in evening and stay in airport hotel to cut down on stress in AM
Day 9: morning flight home

Personally I adored the Loire Valley, as did my mom and sister. We say Chaumont, Chambord, and Chenonceau, and loved them all. There’s lots to explore at these chateaux between the structures themselves, the grounds, and any special exhibitions going on (e.g., when we were at Chaumont, there was both a special garden show and several contemporary art installations), so you’ll want to spend several hours at them. And of course there are many more beyond the ones we saw.

I’m not convinced Honfleur is a worthwhile stop. It’s cute enough in the harbor area, but that’s tiny, and a lot of the streets are just shops selling tourist tat. I was not impressed by the sights Rick recommended in Honfleur and the best part of being there was just having lunch alongside the harbor. Rouen alone might be enough but if you wanted to add another sight, Giverny (Monet’s home and gardens) is an alternative.

Forget your first option, or at least forget your plans for day 1. That's a suicidal itinerary. You wouldn't get on the road until 11 am at the earliest, meaning you wouldn't get to Bayeux til after 10 pm! If you want to do the non Paris sites first, then train to Rouen on the first day and spend the night there. Pick up your rental and go to Bayeux the next day. Or train to Caen to get the car ( many rental places may be closed on Sunday) . Spend 2 nights there.

I agree that a guided tour of the DDay sites is most valuable, unless one of you is a WWII military historian. March can be cold and wet, so pack accordingly.

Skip Mont St Michael and head straight for Amboise for 2 nights. I'd skip Villandry that time of year, since the gardens will have little in leaf or bloom. But you would have time to see one chateau on your arrival day and 2 or 3 the next. If you only want 1 night in the Loire, return to Paris in the late afternoon if your 2nd day there.

Then drop the car at St Pierre Des Corps and return to Paris by train for the remainder of your trip.

PS: regarding the mention of Giverny above - it won't be open to the public until April.

So we did much of your trip this past fall. I think it best, to slow down a bit. Rouen, to Honfleur to Bayeux, and sight seeing is too much.
I would grab the Metro in Paris and start your two day tour. If you have any type of plane delay jumping into a car to Rouen could be delayed. We took a train to Mantes La Jolie and rented a car(next to train station) there to drive to Rouen, avoiding driving in Paris. We stopped at Giverny along the way. Our personnel reflection of Rouen would have been to skipped it. It seemed to be a shopping mecca for many, for some reason we found it impersonal. I recommend you go straight to Honfluer.
Our day 2 - We stopped at Fecamp, Etrategoing from Rouen to Honfleur. Honfluer was charming and could recommend the Satie House - a little off beat. Honfluer was very crowed with tourist (early September) but charming.
Bayeux is charming but there is so much WWII to see. We spent 3 days visiting the sites, you can do one. I highly recommend the museum at Utah Beach (we spent 2 hours), not Omaha. The way they have done the Airborne Museum is wonderful, but not sure you could fit it in. Overland tours get great reviews, we had a private.
I would chose MSM over Rouen and I had wanted to spend the night. It is such a tourist attraction! Overwhelming and very "touristy"
Sadly, I do get worn out by multiple museums. Depending on your family's interest I would skip the Louvre ( don't hate me),, just so big, definitely the D'Orsay. A new museum is the Liberation which is fascinating, http://www.museeliberation-leclerc-moulin.paris.fr/
Another unique experience was https://www.atelier-lumieres.com/. I do not think anyone would object to that expereince.
You will get back ! Slow down and enjoy.

I think both Rouen (a city of 110,000) and Honfleur (a small town of 7500) are worthwhile. If in doubt, Google photos Rouen and photos Honfleur. Rouen has a rather large historic district rebuilt after wartime destruction. It also has some interesting museums if you have extra time.

A possible solution to renting a car mid trip in your Option #2 is take the RER train to Versailles, rent a car from that town and drive to Bayeux. When you come back to Versailles you drop the car off there and take the RER back to Paris. We did this on our trip to Paris and Normandy and it worked surprisingly well. The RER got us outside of Paris (no major city driving) and most everything is a 10 minute walk from the train station in Versailles. We looked at taking the train all the way to Bayeux and renting a car there, but there were a lot less options for car rentals in Bayeux so this worked really well for us. We loved staying in Bayeux -the Cathedral was impressive from our perspective, we loved walking the town and eating in cafes. In terms of the D Day sites my family thought the Utah Beach Museum was excellent. No matter what you decide to do- you are going to have a wonderful time! (I too had to skip MSM to make our trip itinerary work so I understand where you are coming from.)