In mid October, we will be traveling by rental car for 7-10 days after a week in Paris. We're looking for suggestions for areas/smaller cities that are scenic, but a bit off the beaten path. We have traveled to Normandy and are now thinking of an area further south. We are thinking of the Dordogne area, but are open to other areas. We'd appreciate your ideas.mthanks!
Here's an area that you might enjoy. We spent a week in that area and loved it. Fewer tourists and lots to see.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languedoc-Roussillon
We took the TGV to Avignon and rented a car from there.
Thank you Carol! Did you have any particular places you especially liked?
We love Burgundy:
https://janettravels.wordpress.com/category/burgundy/
And we love the Dordogne where we will be traveling in early September. Consider renting a cottage in either area and then on your way back to Paris try another spot for 3 nights. We are going to spend 3 nights in St. Malo on our return from the Riviera where we are spending 2 weeks. It is a spot we have missed seeing in the past, so decided this was our change. We did Normandy with an extra 5 nights we had in a trip a few years ago and loved that as well. Another great spot for 3 nights is Strasbourg with an environment very different from Paris and these other areas.
The Dordogne is a great option, albeit a bit of a long drive from Paris in one day. We spent a week there in April, in Beynac, and loved it. See my blog, which has several entries for that week: http://mainelywinenews.blogspot.com/2016/04/end-of-week-in-dordogne.html.
I also love Burgundy, and have been there several times. It's not as long a drive from Paris (at least the northern part isn't). Here's the part of my blog from our trip there in 2013: http://mainelywinenews.blogspot.com/2013/04/into-burgundy.html
Thank you all for the recommendations and links. Now, we just have to wait until my husband finds out from work the actual dates of our trip. Luckily, we don't mind winging it.