Southern France and Paris

What a great time to travel.

Your topic is titled "Southern France...," so I guess that is where you'd like to go. Getting there from Switzerland will be a slog, but getting from Provence to Paris is pretty easy. I would take a train to Provence and then arrange to have a car there. Return the car and hop the TGV to Paris.

You might want to consider the areas that are closest to Switzerland -- the Savoie and Jura. Very rural, very interesting, and very good food and wine (of course, that could be said for pretty much any part of France).

When I put Southern France what I really meant was south of Paris France. If we want to see the Dordogne and the Loire valley regions, what would be a good home base? Should we rent a car instead of using trains?
Thanks

I think you'll need to drive once you leave Paris--certainly if you want to include the Dordogne. I suspect the Loire and the Dordogne are a bit far apart to visit from a common base, given that you'd want to visit multiple places within each area. From the map it looks as if Poitiers is sort of between the two.

It's about a 6-hour drive from Paris to Bordeaux without any stops, so I hope you don't need to do a round-trip. That would chew up a lot of your countryside time.

if it were me I would choose one region plus Paris --- Burgundy is fabulous and a short drive to Paris

Last June I reached the Dordogne from Paris via train and car. I took a 4-hour train from Paris to Brieve, rented a car from the Europcar office next to the Brieve train station, and then drove the remaining 1.5 hours to the Dordogne area. Aside from all the rain everything went swimmingly.

I think the Dordogne is marvelous. It's not a good fit logistically, and I wouldn't, but with 6 days you could do it.

A lot of driving, though.

A slightly better plan would be to go from Switzerland to Paris, from Paris to the Dordogne, and then fly home from Bordeaux or Toulouse. Or skip Paris (is that heresy?) and spend time across the south, from Provence to Languedoc to Perigord before flying home.

The easiest would be Burgundy and then Paris. You'll probably go through Lyon and Beaune is a short train ride from there. You can get a fast train from Lyon or Dijon to Paris.

Burgundy is the same kind of country as Dordogne, but with much less tourists (and more "rural charm" in my view). It's the real French heartland, and it's beautiful. Very rich around the vineyards, way more "simple" elsewhere.

Beaune, Dijon, then the Morvan area are must-sees. In Morvan, you can stay one day around Vezelay (starting point of the first crusade) and Avallon, then push the next day to Auxerre (wonderful medieval city, and no less wonderful restaurant scene !)

You'll enjoy the best France has to offer, without all the tourist rip-offs commonly found in Dordogne.

Paris is a two-hours drive from Auxerre.

Enjoy your trip !