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One day stop over between Annecy and Antibes

Posted by on

My fiancé and I are visiting the south of France the beginning of May. We are traveling by train (ideally) or bus. Below is our current itinerary. We are looking for recommendations on where to stay between Annecy and Antibes for 1 day. We have looked in Lyon and Marseille. Are there other cities we should consider? Ideally, we want to get closer to the coast than Lyon but we are hesitant about staying in Marseille since RS doesn’t cover it in his guide. What hotel would you recommend (our budget is about $150-250 per night)? We would love any other tips for traveling between these cities or recommendations you may have? Thank you in advance!

Day 1: Fly into Geneva, travel to Annecy
Day 2: Annecy
Day 3: Annecy to ??
Day 4: ?? to Antibes
Day 5-6: Antibes
Day 7: Antibes to Avignon
Day 8: Avignon
Day 9: Avignon to Geneva
Day 10: Fly out of Geneva

Posted by
112 posts

You have 8 full days for this trip (excluding your arrival and departure dates) starting and ending in Geneva and you're already planning on visiting Annecy, Antibes and Avignon. I think that's already way too much ground to cover in such a short amount of time but it's your vacation, not mine. I'd recommend heading straight to Antibes from Annecy as there's enough to see and do just along the Côte d'Azur for a week or more and the same applies to Avignon.

For hotels there are numerous websites like vrbo.com or hotels.com or basic google searches etc. where you can enter your dates/criteria and you'll also find accommodation info (as well as everything a tourist would need to plan their visit) on the tourist office websites for any town you want to visit. I have no expertise when it comes to hotels so others can help you with that but in the meantime I suggest you do your own hotel research and find some options and then post them here to seek feedback from other posters.

https://en.lac-annecy.com/

https://www.antibesjuanlespins.com/en

https://avignon-tourisme.com/en/

One other thing you should know is that train tickets for TGV and Intercités trains are cheapest when purchased 4 months in advance so if you haven't purchased your train tickets already then you should do that asap and you can use sncf-connect.com for train schedules, prices and ticket purchase. If you are using the local TER trains (for day trips from any of your bases) these trains have fixed fares and tickets don't need to be purchased in advance.

Posted by
6880 posts

Assuming air fare is booked, I would reshuffle the trip to fly from Geneva to Nice (for Antibes) at the very beginning. You will have to do so on separate tickets; I suggest 4 hours as a buffer between the incoming flight and the flight to Nice. I assume you land in Geneva in the morning so it should not be a big deal.
If air fare is not booked: fly into Nice and out of Geneva.

That way you could spend the days as follows:
- Day 1 travel to Antibes
- Days 2, 3 Antibes
- Day 4 travel to Avignon
- Days 5,6 Avignon
- Day 7 travel to Annecy
- Day 8 Annecy
- Day 9 either stay in Annecy with an early taxi to Geneva airport on day 10 (ballpark €100-120), or head to a Geneva airport hotel after a full day in Annecy.

It would be more efficient than taking the train the whole way from Geneva/Annecy to Antibes, both ways.

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