Please "roast" my itinerary!

Well since you asked - I think this sounds like way too much! It's so overpacked and over scheduled that I think it would be exhausting. Day 9 has a 5 hour drive, car rental return to Orly and arrival in Paris for lunch at 1pm for lunch and check in at hotel and then a 4 hour walk though Paris! That's a long long day. Your other days are equally daunting looking.

No one but you can decide what kind of travel most suits you - but this doesn't look fun to me.

And even though it may not actually be "exhausting" to some - it still leaves not enough time to actually see/do much of anything in the destinations because you're spending all of your time in a car traveling.

Thanks for the replies!

And this is a deeply cut version!

Alright, what do ya'll suggest I cut? I am leaning towards axing Versailles and Salon du Chocolat, but having a hard time with that. What about cutting Antibes and Rue Cler Market?

We have been to Scotland, London, and Italy. We basically busted our tails to see what we saw, and I've decided there's nothing on this planet I want to see so badly that I'm going to bust my tail again. I literally got hiker's rash on all of the above vacations, and never before or since.

ETA-I may do better to axe the Riviera altogether and do that another time.

Thanks so much!

Avignon to Bourges is a major haul over a bunch of mountains. It makes no sense to go in the opposit direction to Grenoble for a distillery tour. Enjoy Bourges, the Jacques Coeur house and the amazing cathedral.

Any driving times you get from Google or Viamichelin need to be a starting idea; add a couple hours onto everything for jams, rest, lunch, potty breaks.

It might be faster to return your car in Tours and take the train to Paris.

What do you have in mind for seeing the Riviera on Day 2? You'll need to grab something to eat, then get yourself to the train station or appropriate bus stop (but buses are slower), then wait for the train/bus, then travel to another town. By the time you do that it will be at least 2:45 or 3 PM. You'll need to select your destination carefully. You'll want a place where the area of interest to tourists is very near the train station or bus stop. Or are you thinking of driving? In that case you'll need to get back to where you've left the car, deal with the often significant Nice traffic, and navigate to your chosen destination.

Have you checked your driving times on ViaMichelin and padded its estimates a bit? Parking can be a real challenge in this area, and I have a feeling you haven't accounted for that in deciding how much you can accomplish each day. For example, Rick's 40-minute Antibes walk will not take 40 minutes if you have to drive into town, find parking near the largely pedestrianized historic district, get to the starting point for the walk, complete the walk (will you not look in any shop windows, browse the market stalls, or stop for an ice cream?), and walk back to your car.

Thanks Bets and acraven.

We will have a car in Nice and return it in Paris. I have checked the travel times using Google maps to all of the locations, padded them very marginally (like 15-30 minutes depending on location). The Grenoble stop is where monks make Chartreuse, and it's the only place in the world that makes it. I figured since it's a 45 min out of the way stop, it would be worth it (and it's one of my favorite beverages).

ETA: Day 2 in Nice, I was planning a food tour 9:45-1:15. The 2nd half of the day planning on biking around some of the close by towns.

With the Antibes, you bring up good points. It's in there because Rick recommends it, and it's on the way out. But if I'm thinking logically, it's illogical to think I could go to a town, do a 40 minute walk, leave, and think I've done it justice. Probably better to skip it altogether rather than do it half-heartedly.

St. Remy-I really want to see.

Thanks so much, and if you see more, please let me know!

First, I must confess that I stopped reading at Day 7. My main comment is that you are not allowing enough time for the mundane stuff like getting gas, getting lost, traffic and finding places to park your car, and how long it will take to have lunch unless you grab a to go sandwich. For example on day 7, it is a solid hour drive from Chateau Chenonceau to Chateau d'Usse and you have given yourself an hour to do it. That leaves you no time to park the car, etc. so you will end up with about 30 minutes there before you have to head out.

First, I must confess that I stopped reading at Day 7. My main comment is that you are not allowing enough time for the mundane stuff like getting gas, getting lost, traffic and finding places to park your car, and how long it will take to have lunch unless you grab a to go sandwich. For example on day 7, it is a solid hour drive from Chateau Chenonceau to Chateau d'Usse and you have given yourself an hour to do it. That leaves you no time to park the car, etc. so you will end up with about 30 minutes there before you have to head out.

Emily,

I can't comment much on the middle days, but my thoughts on the book ends.

If you really want to experience the Riviera, you are a day or 2 short of enough time. Nice is worthy of at least the day and a half from your arrival and day 2. The four or so hours you give on day 2 would allow you perhaps to see the ramparts but hardly to tour the Vieille Ville or spend time on the beach or visit the Negresco (among other smaller but quaint sites). And for the next few hours to see 'French Riviera', most other towns along the coast are worth of a day. Monoco, Antibes, Eze, Cannes...if traveling by car, or in succession, you might be able to get two for one, but you will just be breezing through.

As for Paris, your itinerary looks pretty good and should be the model for the rest of the trip. I think your Versailles day is a little off though. If you plan to see everything there and get the train back to Paris, you should plan on about 7-7:30 to arrive back in Paris.

On all the driving days, and this is the case anywhere, pick all the stuff you want to see and then take one or 2 things off and add 20% to estimated drive times. It makes it so hard (and less fun) when you have to follow such a tight schedule that you cannot linger when something is cooler than you thought. Or you see a road sign for a side trip you did not plan and you can't live in the moment. Also, it is wise to add about 30 minutes to every where you want to stop and tour. The tour times of the chateaux are probably about right, but you might get lost, you might wait in lines, you have to park, you have to fill with gas. There are so many little things that can totally throw of a driving schedule.

I think there are good things in your itinerary though. You give slower days after the fuller days to allow you to rest a bit. So if you also leave yourself with options for things you can trim (less desired sites) for the days where you get off schedule, most of this is doable.

Emily,

I can't comment much on the middle days, but my thoughts on the book ends.

If you really want to experience the Riviera, you are a day or 2 short of enough time. Nice is worthy of at least the day and a half from your arrival and day 2. The four or so hours you give on day 2 would allow you perhaps to see the ramparts but hardly to tour the Vieille Ville or spend time on the beach or visit the Negresco (among other smaller but quaint sites). And for the next few hours to see 'French Riviera', most other towns along the coast are worth of a day. Monoco, Antibes, Eze, Cannes...if traveling by car, or in succession, you might be able to get two for one, but you will just be breezing through.

As for Paris, your itinerary looks pretty good and should be the model for the rest of the trip. I think your Versailles day is a little off though. If you plan to see everything there and get the train back to Paris, you should plan on about 7-7:30 to arrive back in Paris.

On all the driving days, and this is the case anywhere, pick all the stuff you want to see and then take one or 2 things off and add 20% to estimated drive times. It makes it so hard (and less fun) when you have to follow such a tight schedule that you cannot linger when something is cooler than you thought. Or you see a road sign for a side trip you did not plan and you can't live in the moment. Also, it is wise to add about 30 minutes to every where you want to stop and tour. The tour times of the chateaux are probably about right, but you might get lost, you might wait in lines, you have to park, you have to fill with gas. There are so many little things that can totally throw of a driving schedule.

I think there are good things in your itinerary though. You give slower days after the fuller days to allow you to rest a bit. So if you also leave yourself with options for things you can trim (less desired sites) for the days where you get off schedule, most of this is doable.

The schedule looks packed, but maybe it's not so bad as it looks with so many events scheduled each day (and of course, you could decide to skip any of those if something else more interesting comes up, or the weather is bad, or you run out of time). It's easier to think of your trip in terms of nights, as in where you will be spending that night:

Nights 1 & 2: Nice
Night 3, 4, 5 Avignon (Nice to Avignon, about 2.5 - 3 hours)
Night 6: Bourges (Avignon to Bourges, about 5.5 - 6 hours)
Nights 7, 8: Saumur (Bourges to Saumur, about 2.5 hours)
Nights 9, 10, 11, 12: Paris

So one drive is really long, the others are just kind of long. If you really want to visit those towns, then just know that you will be having quite a bit of car time. If you really want to visit Bourges, then this is really the best option than I can think of. If you are ok with skipping that, then another option would be to drop your rental car after Avignon, then take the high-speed train into Paris, then take another train from Paris out to Tours, where you would rent another car. That sounds like a hassle.

I could, and have, spent all day at the Louvre, but that's not the amount of time that most people spend there. And each day, budget more like 1.5 hours for lunch, especially when you factor in finding a place to eat, going to the bathroom, that kind of thing. Everything will take longer than you think it will or should, sometimes for good reasons like the lovely cafe you found on a beautiful square in some charming little town.

Versailles can be tiring; do you really want to do that and a night bike tour in the same day? And when will you eat dinner on days 10 and 11? (Keeping in mind that the usual Parisien dinner time is around 8 pm)

Thanks again!

JHK- You are 100% right, I didn't calculate the need for everyday stuff like gas, bathroom, and simply stretching our legs.

expatsandbegats- I like your idea to cut 1-2 things from each day, and add 20% driving time. I may end up cutting the Riviera completely and plan to visit another time.

Lexma- We do love museums. We've previously spent all day in the British Museum and NYC's Museum of Natural History. I could see us spending a day in the Louvre. Thank you for your perspective about Versailles. I don't believe I'd like to walk/tour all day and then "relax" by riding a bike through a major city.

I know it was a long post, and I really appreciate the time ya'll took to read and review it.

I was just going to echo JHK - having rented a car in the south of France, we just kinda played it by ear. There is always something that will take longer than you think - when we were dropping the car, we decided to drop it NOT at the Nice airport because of the additional drop off fee. We're like...oh, we will just sail into Nice, drop the car and 20 min later...poof! Well, the traffic on the Promenade was cray cray. We missed the turn for the road...by the time we got turned around and back to the correct road, it seriously took a good 25-30 min because of the traffic. OK, get to the drop off and find out the garage is one street back - and the road running to it is one way - and not in our favour, plus the street we were on was one way, meaning we had to get back two blocks...seriously another 40 min to accomplish this (did I mention the traffic was insane?). I literally could have circled the block 10 times by foot by the time we got there in the car. So that 20 min drop off turned into about 75-90 min (hubby was also in the car drop off place for 15 min before coming out to say we had to move the car back around, as they were busy with other people).

Also, hitting construction on roadways...it helps to have a GPS...both times we rented in France, we lucked into the car having an integrated GPS - it was really helpful for finding gas stations, parking, alternate routes if construction....

So days without car are prob fine, but def build in some traffic/random crap happening time when driving. Trying to plan to the hour rarely works. We stayed in Salon en Provence 4 nights and I'm like...oh, we'll see 10-12 diff places - well, we saw maybe 6-7 because things always take longer - and we had torrential rain one day and local flooding that pretty much cut our day in half as we had to go back to our airbnb at 4pm because it poured buckets.

So, make sure to have some MUST SEE's, but also have some things you are cool with cutting out in case of unforeseen circumstances.

Also - the Champs Elysee isn't all that it's cracked up to be - lots of people, tacky tourist shops and really expensive shops.

Versailles is a full day and if you see everything ( the petit and grand trianons , Marie antionettes hamlet etc) you will be tired when you arrive back in Paris .

I love visiting Versailles and have many times now , but for short stays in Paris my advice is to skip it UNLESS it is truly one of your interests . It will be crowded as heck , it's hot and stuffy in the palace . You are already seeing some chateaus right ? And for a taste of what a palace looks like just be sure to visit Napoleons apartments in the Louvre .

Dozens of trips to Paris before I went to Rue cler . It did not overwhelm me personally . Be sure not to go on a Sunday it's dead .

Also note closed days for museums in Paris is usually Monday or Tuesday so be careful on scheduling . Ps instead of Rue cler , in day you visit Orsay , consider either the Rodin or Invalids Army musuem , they are in area and both are interesting ( especially if like menyiunlike musuems )

I agree about Rue Cler - when we were there, we hadn't traveled a lot in France yet and it was great. But after seeing markets in other French towns, it is now underwhelming to think back on it. See if you'll be in any of the other villages on their market days, and go to those instead.

I haven't been to all the other places on your list, but having just planned our trip in Germany, I came to the conclusion that a significant amount of Rick's "walks" highlight things that aren't really very interesting to me, or there are other things that are MORE interesting to me. I looked at the individual things he recommends, plus a couple other guidebooks, plus tripadvisor reviews, plus things people on this forum have posted about the places we'd be and winnowed those to our must-sees. I know I have more things as possibilities than we'll be able to get to, but I'll do more intel once we're on the ground (ask locals) and allow for some things to get dropped and others to be added. We've been in Paris twice now and have yet to go to Versailles. I just can't yet give up a whole day to go there. Still too much else I'd rather do. You need to decide what you can't possible go without seeing/doing and add a few extra "maybes" if you have time.
Oh, and November = short days. Sunrise around 8 or 8:30, sunset around 5:00.