Paris to Normandy 2016

sharon,

Are you planning to rent a car in Germany and drop it off in France? If so you may find that's an expensive proposition as there's usually a hefty drop charge.

Travel from Germany to Paris will be much faster and a more efficient use of your valuable holiday time by using high speed trains, which travel at up to 300 km/h. The fast trains have compulsory seat reservations which are specific to train, date and departure time. If you're willing to commit to a specific departure time, you can pre-purchase tickets online and possibly save some money. For rail tickets in France, Germany and Italy, I'd recommend www.capitainetrain.com as it's a very user friendly website, and tickets are the same price as if bought from the rail network websites.

For touring the D-Day beaches, I'd highly recommend taking one of the excellent local tours as you'll learn far more of the events than if by going on your own, and it will be a much more interesting and rewarding experience. While some of them can be pricey, that's not always the case. If you need suggestions on tour firms in that area, check the RS France guidebook or I can offer a few suggestions.

Finally, you may wish to delete your duplicate thread on this topic, so that you keep all replies in the same place.

Thanks so much Ken. Now I'm beginning to think we'll use the trains to get around Germany and France but switch to a car to do our D-Day/WW 1 exploring. Plan would be to pick up and drop the car in the Paris area.

Very open to any suggestions you might have on finding a local tour for the Normandy area. My husband and I are WW II buffs , so are the kids, but have a local guide would be great. Also suggestions on where to stay would be appreciated.

Cheers.

sharon,

Using high speed trains from Germany to Paris would be the quickest and most efficient method. That trip may involve several changes, so it would help to know whether you've ever travelled by train in Europe. Where will you be starting in Germany? Also, you may have to use Metro or Taxi to get from your arrival station in Paris to the car rental office. Each driver will need to obtain an International Driver's Permit for driving in France.

The best "home base" location in Normandy is Bayeux (IMO). A lot of the tours depart from there, there's an excellent WW-II Museum there and also the famous Bayeux Tapestry which describes a much earlier battle. The Churchill Hotel is a popular choice, but there are many others. Check the RS France guidebook for other suggestions.

The fact that you're all WW-II history buffs is all the more reason to take a tour, as the guides in that area are exceptional and will make the history "come alive". They have a lot of details gleaned from talking to veterans that aren't in any history books, and they also know where all the sights are located (so can get there in the minimal time). Keep in mind that the front covered a distance of about 50 miles and extended some distance inland, so that's a huge area to cover if you don't know your way around. The prepackaged tours include American, Canadian or British highlights, Band of Brothers, etc. Depending on which guide you choose, you may be able to work out a custom Itinerary of the sights that interest you the most.

Which guides to use will depend to some extent on your budget, but I'd suggest taking a full day tour if possible as that will allow you to visit a greater number of sights. One important point though - BOOK EARLY as they book up quickly, especially at that time of year.

Some of the tour firms you can have a look at......

• http://dboothnormandytours.com/
• http://www.ddayhistorian.com/
• http://www.overlordtour.com/
• http://www.bayeuxshuttle.com/dday-tour-full-day.htm
• http://www.ddaybattletours.com/welcome.html

I've toured with the first two on the list, and they're both outstanding! There are many more listed in the France guidebook.

What an excellent idea! (And I'm not just saying that because my wife and I + our traveling buddies will be making a Paris/Normandy trip ourselves in 2019 - 75th anniversary of the invasion :-)

I can't speak to the travel from Germany to Paris - but IMHO taking a train instead of driving is excellent advice. The high-speed trains are an absolute joy - especially when you are traveling in a group. The ability to sit around a table in comfort and talk while the journey unrolls under you makes it so much more pleasant than driving - and the prices are good as well.

Our first trip to Normandy from Paris years ago involved renting a car (outside of downtown Paris) and driving - won't do that again. It's slower, less comfortable and fraught with hazard.

The last trip we took a 'TGV wanna-be' train (ran at about 120 mph if I remember properly) from Paris (Gare Saint-Lazare?) to Caen - fast, comfortable and convenient. We picked up an Avis rental across the street from the Caen train station and drove all over Normandy (along with all the re-enactors in their jeeps, trucks, armored cars, etc - it was June 6th weekend) without any issues - Avoided the main divided highways and enjoyed the villages as much as possible. Stayed at a 'generic' hotel near the East end of Omaha Beach which was comfortable and reasonable - AND - there were a fair number of Actual Veterans there! Both American and British.

We did not have any issues accessing the various Beaches - even on June 6th. There were various TV crews and dignitaries at some of the locations - notably the American Memorial/Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mare - but there was still access for we 'little people'.

In preparation for the trip in 2019 I purchased a book - MAJOR & MRS HOLT'S DEFINITIVE BATTLEFIELD GUIDE TO D-DAY, NORMANDY LANDING BEACHES - that I now HIGHLY recommend for anyone wanting to get into every detail of the Normandy battlefield that still exists. The book was recommended by someone on this forum - sorry whoever you were since I can't remember your name - thank you! You can buy it on Amazon, but I bought it straight from the authors website - partly because they will autograph it for you :-) - also getting it in the states with a huge 'Royal Mail' label on it was great fun.

We've never used any of the battlefield tours - but I imagine they are excellent. The people of Normandy take their history seriously so I imagine the professionals must be just that much better.

Sounds like fun!

We didn't sign up for an organized D-day Sights tour in 2008, so having our rental car there was most helpful. We were actually coming from Belgium, and picked up our rental car in Lille, France, driving it across the northern coast to Bayeux and other Normandy sites. We turned the car in at Caen.

If we were coming from Germany, I'd first consider taking the train to Caen, then picking up a rental car there, avoiding Paris traffic and roads. If you had WW1 sights in mind east of Paris, perhaps you'd want to pick up a car in the Alsace or other eastern France regions. Happy travels!