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Staying in Fontainebleau and Bayeux

Posted by on

My wife and I are traveling to Paris the middle of March. We will be in France for 8 nights and plan to stay a majority or all our nights in Paris. However Fontainebleau sounds really nice and we were wondering if it would be worth spending a night or two there. Besides spending time at the Château de Fontainebleau and surrounding grounds, the forest sounds like it has some good hiking trails we could spend time on. I also like to run in the mornings, preferably on dirt trails. Sounds like that area might have some good places to go for an early morning trail run.

We would also like to see the Normandy beaches. Would staying a night in Bayeux be worth it? Doing a day trip to this area from Paris would take about 5 hours round trip on the train. Might be better just to spend the night, not sure.

So basically we are trying to decide between spending all 8 nights in Paris in one hotel and seeing all these sites as day trips from Paris or spending 2 or 3 nights outside of Paris in Fontainebleau and/or Bayeux.

Posted by
8166 posts

You need at least 2 nights in Bayeux:
1 to explore the town itself
and then 1 long day trip to the American Cemetery and Museum and Omaha Beach or other D-Day sites.

I would just do Fountainbleau as a daytrip

Posted by
5 posts

Bayeux is such an amazing place to visit! I loved staying here and visiting the beaches and many other WWII sites. I highly recommend coming here and staying 2 nights. You won’t be sorry! I did a fantastic 2 day tour by Battlebus tours that I LOVED as well... I love history so coming here was a dream. Good luck!

Posted by
14980 posts

Going to Fontainebleau I see as a place to relax, down time, slow down the pace of traveling, take in this small historic town. If you're spending 2 nights there, good, 3 nights even better. I like Fontainebleau, should have gone there my first time in Paris. I finally saw the place, ie the Chateau on my 2nd trip four years later.

Aside from the Chateau there is also the Napoleon Museum on Rue St Honare ca 30 mins walk from the Chateau, if you want more history. Having the extra time in Fontainebleau, you can go to Barbizon,... well worth it.

Posted by
40 posts

Thanks so much for the great info! We have decided to stay 2-3 nights in Bayeux and 1-2 nights at Fontainebleau. The rest of the time will be spent in Paris (3-4 nights). We had looked into an over night trip to London or a couple nights in Rome since I could have got flights for $59 round trip. However we decided we better concentrate on France this trip. Still need to adjust the nights we spend in each spot a little but we are getting close.

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