Paris to Normandy

If you have the time, then driving from Paris would be good. But I'd look for a rental place on the edge of the city, rather than negotiating the traffic in the city center. If either of you like Monet and/or gardens, his home in Giverny is a very short detour on the way. Honfleur and Deauville are also relatively short detours.

I would be unlikely to drive from Munich to Paris, but you don't say how many days you spent on the trip. I have rented a car in Strasbourg, but that was AFTER visiting Strasbourg, and it was the start of a slow drive to Avignon, about ten days. Another time, we based in Besançon, visiting the Jura and then to visit a cousin in Geneva. But you make it clear that you relish long hours in the car.

I'll mention the common warning given here that you need to learn whether it is safe for you to drive a car right after a night with almost no "normal" sleep. Conversely, some travelers are very disappointed to learn how much effort it takes to get from CDG to the SECOND train station in Paris, to get on the train to Caen. I will admit that we have taken a train from CDG to St. Pierre des Corps (Loire) where I drove 40 minutes to our first hotel after flying from the East Coast USA.

I have driven "back" to Paris from Bayeux. It was a terrible mistake to take the car into the city of Paris, so I'd suggest that you only go that way if you find a place (or are going to CDG anyway) to drop the car on the outskirts. (I'm not a big fan of spending the night at CDG before flying home, but I'm careful to avoid early flight times, if possible. And morning transportation from Paris to CDG isn't that hard. We often splurge on a cab.)

If you are going to "see some spots along the way", I suggest you buy Lonely Planet France, and invest the reading time to find the places that are of interest to the two of you. This is a substantial research job. We chose to focus (I mean, Bayeux-Paris) on public and estate gardens, of which there are a lot in France. I found that most attractions were 20 minutes off the highway, in various directions. It takes a great deal to time to get there, find a parking place in some cases, and get inside the attraction. Then you have to get back to the highway. It isn't a matter of "sparse with good sites", it's that you're not driving from one suburban shopping mall to the next! There's also traffic (especially, local traffic, after you get off the highway) to contend with.

In fact, there are a number of very high-profile, worthwhile locations that are quite easy to daytrip from your Paris hotel, by public transportation. Examples are Versailles, Vernon, and Chateau Chantilly (which includes an important art collection), but there are a lot more. I totally agree that car is very helpful in visiting Normandy. (We even stopped in the local equivalent of Walmart to buy a box fan for our luxury-chateau hotel room, which was mighty hot in July!) I'm not opposed to the car, but rather to the itinerary you've sketched out.

After July in Normandy, you will have spent plenty of time driving around parking lots looking for spaces at the war sites, and waiting for a space to open up, just like Christmas at the Mall of America!

Thanks CJean. I've driven in Paris before. It's not that bad. I've only done it to drop off the rental car, but I'm used to driving in NYC and Boston, so big city driving isn't a problem. I'll look into Giverny and the other spots you mentioned.

Thanks Tim, but I think you misunderstood my post. Two years ago, my wife and I drove from Munich to Paris over 8 days. We made multiple stops and stayed in some wonderful places along the way. The trip this year will be from London, to Paris, to Normandy, and back to Paris. We are taking the train from London to Paris, but my question is, should I rent in Paris and enjoy the sites along the way to Normandy. Or should I just get on another train after arriving in Paris from London and head straight to Normandy.

What I'm curious about is if there are some worthwhile places to see in that 2-3 hour drive from Paris to Caen/Bayeaux. If that 2-3 hours extended to 5-6 hours because we got to see some really nice spots, that's not a big deal. I'm not saying I want to drive for 8 hours or anything. I think in our trip from Munich to Paris, we didn't drive more than 4 hours in a day before we arrived at our next spot to explore.

Caleb

I suggest your rent a car at CDG and drive toward the Normandy area. We did this 3 years ago when we took our trip there and it was wonderful.....probably one of my favorite of the 3 times we have been to France. At the time we had friends living in France and they suggested we investigate THE MOST BEAUTIFUL VILLAGES IN FRANCE website. They encouraged us to drive through as many of these quaint and charming spots as we were on our way.......it made our trip! These villages look like postcards, forgotten in time, and are so worth the drive to investigate. We drove through Gerberoy ( rose-festival town, beautiful ) on our way to Giverney to see Monet’s home and gardens the first night. Next we drove to Etratet, incredible natural coastline, Rouen for the day and the night in Honfleur. It was so picturesque! We had an apple strudel in Beuvron en Auge, sitting on the roadside cafe......lovely little place. We ended up in Bayeux for our WW2 tours. My husband grew up in Mississippi delta farmland ( great vistas ) and we both commented on our beautiful the drives were in rural France. I am so glad we drove and would not have wanted to miss the scenery! Spent 3 nights in Normandy, on to MSMichel for a night and then drove to the Loire Valley for the chateau tours. Drove back to Paris for 5 nights and then home.......LOVED this trip. We turned our car in at Paris as soon as we arrived back there and were glad to get rid of it in Paris. Also suggest renting a portable wifi with hippocketwifi.com........it is with you 24-7 and you have a great GPS maps feature on your phone you can use at any time. Let me know if you want more info.......be glad to help!

So you won't have jet lag and you won't be arriving at CDG, but rather at Gare du Nord, where you can rent a car on the level below the trains. We drove from GDN to Reims by city streets and the Peripherique, it wasn't fun but it was OK, seems like you could manage that on the way to Normandy. I suggest plotting out the route on Google Maps or Via Michelin and bringing along a printout for your navigator, including the turn-by-turn directions. The hardest part will be the first, getting away from the station on a bunch of one-way streets that may not go where you think you want to. As I recall the drive from the rental car garage is an upward spiral to a street near the northwest corner of the station complex.

The most direct route to Caen and Bayeux would take you close to Giverny, Rouen, and Honfleur, all worthwhile stops along the way. But you might not have time for all three the day you drive up from Paris. You could see Giverny and save the others, or one of them, for one of your other Normandy days. Not much to see in LeHavre itself except a big modern bridge and what's supposed to be a good art museum. You could spend most of a day in Rouen if you wanted, Honfleur is good for a few hours I think.

From Giverny La Roche-Guyon is worth the few km detour and also further downstream Les Andelys and the stunning view over the Seine from Château Gaillard. Nice is the drive along the coast from Honfleur to Deauville and as said before Beuvron-en-Auge and the countryside there is really charming.