Hi,
We were a week each in the Lyon, Avignon and Bordeaux areas this spring. Outside Lyon is Roanne, were we rented a Fench gite. If you are not familiar with 'Gites de France', Please do. The only difficulty with their website is knowing the departments (counties and sub-counties of France. We rented a cottage for a week, and it was 180 Euro/wk. Gites tend to rent Saturday to Saturday. At that low a price, staying 3 or 4 nights and then leaving (tell them in advance that you will be departing early so they can be there when you leave) still seems a bargain. Roanne city and area was lovely and not heavily touristed. Lyon = great food, even rural Lyon has great food.
Avignon...speaking of tourists...YIKES! By the way, I am a history fan and seeing Avignon drew me there. What a poorly spent day. Everything worth stealing was taken away from the papal palace when the popes moved back to Rome. We were there in April and I can't imagine what it would be like in July. One large traffic jam looking for or at lavender? Historic, yes. Crowded, you better believe it. I am not going back. We had a nice quiet gite here too.
And then we rented a rural gite in Pay Basque for a week. The Basque region south of Bordeaux. Lovely, beautiful, empty. The Salies-de-Bearn region is quite nice. Great food. We were well south of Bordeaux near the Spanish border. Bordeaux for 4 nights.
And Bordeaux itself is fantastic. The design genius of Paris, Haussmann, lived in Bordeaux before going to Paris. You will see where he got his ideas for a beautiful city.
You have selected three great places. If I were to redo my trip: a couple days in Paris...then go to Lyon/Roanne, Then get near the Cele River/Lot River in the Lot Department. And then move on to Basque/Bordeaux before returning to Paris for a few days. 22-26 days. Sounds wonderful. Lean towards more days and more relaxed time. At least two of those days will be traveling to and from Europe.
wayne iNWI, I want to go back...
