We are traveling to South of France, Italy (Cinque Terre and Tuscany), and Switzerland mid June. My husband has a bad back so direct flights are important. We are flying out of San Francisco and I am only finding direct flights into Paris and Zurich. Here is my tentative itinerary and I am wondering if we are trying to do too much or if this sounds reasonable. There are four of us and two of us have already seen Paris, but since we are possibly flying into Paris, we figured we may as well spend some time. Any input is greatly appreciated.
Day 1 - Arrive Paris - Spend 2 nights
Day 3 - Train or drive to Southern France - Spend 3 nights probably in Avignon
Day 6 - Travel to Cinque Terre - Spend 1 night
Day 7 - Travel to Tuscany - Spend 3 nights
Day 10 - Travel to Switzerland - Spend 3 nights
Day 13 - Travel home.
Posted by
Florida (previously California)
3990 posts
I think that the two who have not been to Paris should stay there for an additional 4 days and meet the other two in Tuscany unless they feel an overwhelming need to go to Avignon or have no desire to visit Paris. And if that is the case why spend any nights there?
I wouldn't drive to Avignon from Paris. This is a route that is awful by car unless you are turning into a multi-stop excursion that takes several days and includes stops in all the wonderful places along the way. Otherwise, it is a boring, traffic-filled 7-hour drive that will probably take longer than I am estimating because you will hit traffic in Lyon and you will wonder what is going on because it will suddenly open up on the south side of Lyon and there will be no obvious reason (like an accident) for the delay. The TGV does this trip from Paris to Avignon in less than 3 hours (less than 4 if you have a connection). Would the shorter train trip be better for your husband's back?
It takes about 9.5 hours to get to Monterosso by train from Avignon and involves two changes. Will that work for your husband's back? Driving is not going to be much better -- think 8 hours and you would have a pretty big additional charge when you drop off a car in Italy that you rented from France and if you do the usual work around of driving to a border town and dropping the car off there and then taking a train, you are still looking at 9 hours of travel time. Do you want to do all that to spend the night and head out the next day? I'd drop Cinque Terre from this trip. Then you can spend Day 6 getting from Avignon to wherever you are headed in Tuscany. Are you planning to spend 3 days in Zurich? I believe that somewhere out there are people who love vacationing in Zurich but IMO that will be 3 boring and expensive days. http://www.independenttraveler.com/slideshow/9-most-boring-cities-in-the-world/8
Posted by
🏝️ Hobe Sound, FL⛱️
3279 posts
Stop and smell the lavender! Your itinerary requires wasting a LOT of time traveling from place to place. I would suggest going from Paris and spending some time in Burgundy, perhaps Lyon and then Avignon. The trip could easily, and comfortably, be done by rail but a car would give you greater flexibility for day trips. I would end the trip by taking the train to Lucerne and staying there rather than in Zurich. Train service from Lucerne to the Zurich airport is frequent and inexpensive. If you do rent a car, return it in France as the drop off charges to take it to Switzerland would add $400 or much more to your cost.
Save the visit to Italy for your next trip. With travel time, only a night in CDT and a few more in Tuscany would neither do you nor Italy any justice.
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
A great trick I learned from this Forum is that an airport's Wikipedia page lists all the nonstop destinations served and which airlines serve them. Looking at the pages for SFO and OAK, there are a lot more choices than just Paris and Zurich. If these two cities work for your trip, fine; if they don't look into some of the other options.
A note on terminology. What you want is a "nonstop" flight. A "direct" flight is one on one aircraft, even if it makes stops.
Per the Wikipedia page, here are the nonstop destinations from SFO to Europe:
DUBLIN . Aer Lingus
LONDON HEATHROW . British Air, Virgin Atlantic, United
AMSTERDAM . KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
COPENHAGEN . Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS)
PARIS CDG . Air France, XL Airways, United
FRANKFURT . Lufthansa, United
MUNICH . Lufthansa
ZURICH . Swiss Intl Airlines
ISTANBUL . Turkish Airlines
BERLIN TEGEL . Air Berlin (begins May 1, 2017)
MANCHESTER . Virgin Atlantic (begins March 28, 2017)
REYKJAVIK–KEFLAVIK . WOW Air
And if you can use Oakland International Airport, you can fly nonstop to the following:
LISBON. Azores Airlines
LONDON GATWICK . British Airways (begins March 28, 2017), Norwegian Air
BARCELONA . Norwegian Air (begins June 7, 2017)
COPENHAGEN . Norwegian Air (begins March 28, 2017)
STOCKHOLM ARLANDA . Norwegian Air
OSLO GARDERMOEN . Norwegian Air (listed as "seasonal" with no further data)
Alas, no nonstop flights to Italy from either SFO or OAK at this time.
EDIT: I must give full credit to Roberto, our regular poster from the Bay area. He posted an earlier version of this list months ago; I just updated and added to it.