Hi, I'll be travelling to France in mid-June with my SO. After flying in and spending a night in Paris, we have 5 nights until we need to be in Marseille for an anchor of our trip (visiting friends). We are considering two potential routes (via train) to hit some cities/towns that we have not been to before, or wish we'd spent more time in. The first option is train down to Bordeaux, stay two nights, train to Carcassonne, stay a night, and then train to Aix en Provence, stay two nights. Second option is train to Dijon, stay two nights, train to Aneccy, stay two(?) nights, train to Aix for the last night.
Obviously there are some different things we could do in either version, but this was my first pass (ie potential sub in Grenoble instead of Annecy). Hoping to get some advice and opinions on making a decision between which overall route. We generally enjoy walking around cities (love old cities) and sight seeing and finding a great cafe or restaurant. We've done a few different wine regions and do enjoy doing tasting and seeing different vineyards. Biking is also something we like to do. We are not big on museums.
We have travelled in France quite a bit (my SO has lived there before also) - so here's a quick list of nearby places we've been to and thus aren't considering for this trip: Paris, Strasbourg, Colmar, Lyon, Avignon, Nice.
Thanks in advance!