Lyon, Toulouse, or maybe Geneva

We were in Lyon for a couple of days and really enjoyed our time there. We stayed in the Vieux Lyon neighborhood (medieval) in a quirky apartment in a traboule -an exciting experience. There’s a funicular to the top of the hill with nice lookout areas over the city. Also, there’s an excellent Roman ruins museum on that hill. Across the river are buildings that reminded us of parts of Paris. Overall a great location for a few days.

We flew out of Toulouse on another trip. It was just an overnight stop, but we weren’t impressed with the city compared to so many other nicer towns in France. If you do begin there, also stop at Carcassonne, the town with a castle. We stayed there overnight.

My last trip in June, I flew from Paris to Toulouse and rented a car. My itinerary was south to north, so I started in the Pyrenees and worked north to Bordeaux, then took a train back to Paris. You might do the opposite, there are plenty of nice sights in the Bordeaux, Dordogne and Lot Valleys, down to the Pyrenees. You can turn in your car and catch a train conveniently from Perpignan (to avoid a stiff drop charge on the car) to Barcelona.

I liked both Lyon and Toulouse. With its pink-brick buildings Toulouse looks very different from most other French cities. Albi, with the excellent Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, can be visited easily from Toulouse, even without a car. May should be a decent time in that area. Toulouse and Albi can really bake in the middle of the summer.

Lyon in particular takes some time to see. For me it would be a push to cover Lyon, Toulouse and Albi within five days. There are lots of interesting museums, including the Resistance Museum in Lyon.

There's a string of interesting towns and cities strung out all the way to Barcelona (including on the Spanish side of the border). I believe as you do more research on the area, you'll want as much extra pre-trip time as you can manage.

Personally, I feel you could use all 5 days available just exploring the beautiful and historic Languedoc region of southern France, it's the lesser known western neighbor of Provence. One could use Toulouse or Montpellier as a nice base to explore Languedoc.

For potential sites, Languedoc contains the well preserved medieval cities of Carcassonne, Montpellier, and Béziers, countless Roman ruins (such as the Roman arenas in Nîmes), medieval abbeys, Romanesque churches, and impressive feudal citadels (such as the ruined Cathar castles in the mountains of Corbières).

It also close enough to Barcelona that one can take the QUIBUS from Toulouse nonstop to Barcelona that usually runs for €15, no need to mess around with airports, the trip itself is around 5 hrs, but drops your right in the city center of Barcelona.