Updated - Thoughts on my tentative France itinerary?

Fly Amsterdam to Nice?? Looks like a long way to drive just so you can drive back to Paris by way of Provence and Normandy.

Or reconsider Amsterdam -- you will essentially have one jet-lagged day then spend most of the next day packing, going to the airport, waiting around for your plane ...

I think you are trying to cover too much ground in too short of time. Spend one more night in Amsterdam. Choose Normandy and MSM or Nice/Provence. Spend an extra night or two there too.

Chris M,

A few thoughts.....

"sightsee in Amsterdam, fly to Paris in afternoon"

That's absurd! That trip is only ~3H:18M via high speed Thalys train. Flying that route will take longer, probably be more expensive and most definitely will be more of a hassle.

My suggestion would be something along these lines.....

• Sept. 8 - D1 - Depart U.S.
• Sept. 9 - D2/N1 - Arrive Amsterdam / train to Amsterdam Central and then Taxi or Tram to your hotel (you may be jet lagged, so won't get a lot of touring done)
• Sept. 10 - D3/N2 - Amsterdam, touring
• Sept. 11 - D4/N3 - Amsterdam, touring
• Sept. 12 - D5/N1 - Flight from Amsterdam to Nice (check easyJet on that route) - if you book early, prices are good (but cheap tickets are usually non-refundable and non-changeable) - check-in to hotel.
• Sept. 13 - D6/N1 - Rent car, drive to Provence
• Sept. 14 - D7/N2 - Provence, touring
• Sept. 15 - D8/N1 - Start driving to Normandy - the trip should be about 8 hours, if you stop only for fuel and food - note that each driver listed on the rental form will need an International Driver's Permit for driving in France - I'd recommend Bayeux as a good home base for touring Normandy. You'll have to deal with tolls on the motorways, and may need a Chip & PIN card to use automated fuel pumps. I don't think you have time for the Loire Valley with such a short time frame - there are a lot of interesting sights there, and you really won't have time to see many unless you skip other parts of your trip.
• Sept. 16 - D9/N2 - Normandy, touring. IMO, you DO need more than one day there, especially as you're "history geeks". If you want to visit D-Day sites, I would highly recommend taking one of the excellent local tours as you'll learn far more than by just wandering about aimlessly on your own. Pre-booking the tours well in advance is essential!
• Sept. 17 - D10/N3 - Day trip to Mont St. Michel.
• Sept. 18 - D11/N1 - Return rental car in Caen and take train to Paris. You'll arrive at Gare St.-Lazare and will have to get from there to your hotel via Metro or Taxi.
• Sept. 19 - D12/N2 - Paris, touring - you may want to buy a Paris Museum Pass as it will help to avoid queues and is good value if you use it at several sights.
• Sept. 20 - D13/N3 - Paris, touring
• Sept. 21 - D14 - Shuttle, Taxi or RER to airport for flight home.

There are other ways this could be arranged, and this is just one suggestion. You may find it helpful to pack along a copy of the RS France 2016 guidebook as that has an enormous amount of information on hotels, restaurants, sightseeing, transportation, etc. and will help you plan an efficient and cost effective trip. You can either buy the paper copy or download an E-book version.

Good luck with your planning.

According to viamichelin.com, it's over 600 miles and nearly 12 hours to drive from Paris to Nice. Use that website to estimate driving times. I think you are underestimating the size of France.

Aix-en-Provence to Bayeaux is 10:35 hours, 1,071 kilometers according to Viamichelin.fr. I think you have time for either Nice and Provence or Normandy, but not both.

This is nuts and makes little sense at all. I think that Ken has come up with a better alternative - but still involves too much driving for me.

Driving in France is enjoyable when you save it for exploring out of the way destinations. For long distances it makes more sense to take the train which is usually cheaper and faster than driving.

You have what looks like 2 weeks. I'd pick 3 or 4 stops at the most.

Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions! I'm going to check them out and rework this itin. Much appreciated!!

Basically you only have 11 days besides your arrival and departure days from the U.S. You have WAY too many different, far-flung places in your itinerary. All you are going to see are the insides of airplanes, trains, and automobiles if you do this route.

You mentioned:
Amsterdam
Paris
Nice
Provence
Loire (?)
Normandy
Paris

With only eleven days, and if you have to fly into Amsterdam, I would spend the time beginning in Amsterdam, stay a couple of nights and then take the train to Paris, stay for 3-4 days, and then spend 3 days going to and in Normandy, including Mont Saint-Michel.

Or Amsterdam-Paris-Nice, but you definitely have to fly down to Nice and back up. Do not drive to get down there. That is a boring way to spend your precious vacation time.

It takes two nights to get one full day in a place. Normandy and Provence are enormous regions. They are at the opposite ends of the country from each other. Paris is at the opposite end of the country from Nice. This trip is all about covering ground and there is virtually no time to see or do anything. Three nights in Paris is two days which doesn't give you more of Paris than just renting a video tape of top sights.

If I had this amount of time I would focus on at most 3 areas plus perhaps Amsterdam. Fly into Amsterdam and spend at least two nights. Amsterdam repays fairly short visits, but to go all that way and not even have one full day besides jet lag day seems sad. Then from Amsterdam -- if you want to do Provence, fly to Nice and spend a day there, then rent a car and drive to some other area of Provence for a few days of exploring Provence. Then drive to your next region with one stop along the way. Spend a few nights in that new region and drop the car in Paris and finish with 4 or 5 nights there. Here is how we once spent 5 nights in Normandy https://janettravels.wordpress.com/category/normandy/ We also did a full day tour of the WWII American beaches not shown here. Here are a few things we did one time with a week in Burgundy. https://janettravels.wordpress.com/category/burgundy/ You really need about 4 nights 3 days at minimum in any of these regions to have time on the ground. The trip you have planned involves driving from one end of the country to the other twice and very little time to actually spend in the areas you have chosen.

If I had two weeks, I would spend one week in Burgundy or Normandy or the Dordogne and one in Paris. You obviously want to cover lots of ground so I suggest 3 nights in Amsterdam, 5 in Paris and then dividing the rest of the time between two places. That is still quite rushed and you really would be better off focusing. And you definitely regardless of how hit and run the trip you want is need to organize it so you are not pinging back and forth from the north to the south. Flying to Paris from Amsterdam makes no sense if your goal is Nice. Take a look at Vueling and Easyjet for possible flights to Nice or Avignon if you want to do Provence.

This info is all so helpful, thank you for the feedback and suggestions!

I should mention, all our flights are free thanks to frequent flier miles, so I'm not worried about flight cost vs train cost.
Fortunately, our flight to AMS is night time for us so we plan to sleep on the flight and get on local time upon arrival.
We travel a lot for work, so we're used to adjusting to time changes quickly.

Our flight from US to France routes us through Amsterdam, so we thought we'd see a little while we're there rather than just a layover for a couple hours at the airport.
Husband has been there before, so we're just going to see a few quick sites. Not trying to get a full dose of the city.

Now looking at flying into Nice and renting a car there and returning it in/around Paris, after the suggestions and looking at where we want to go.
And working on best places to see and stay between Nice and Normandy.

You asked about time in the Loire Valley; my husband and I loved it! But I agree with others that you probably don't have the time on this trip. Go back to France and stay a week there. Mont St Michel? We did not get there but a friend did a day trip from Normandy; she did not think it was worth the time for that quick of a trip. Our trip was the reverse of yours -- train from Paris to Normandy -- but we found Caen an easy place for train travel. There was a Europcar outlet right across from the train station in Caen, and it also allowed us a few hours to visit the Memorial there. While we could have spent much more time at D-Day sites, we found that the day and a half we had was OK. Good luck with your planning.

I think you underestimate the size of France and the sheer number of things to see. Provence and Normandy are in the complete oposite ends of the country, I think you need to pick one of either. Loire is out of the question, but could be combined with Normandy. France is a lovely country to drive in, but the autoroutes can be boring quickly and not to mention expensive. Safe yourself the time and money and opt for driving shorter distances on country roads instead of trying to cover the whole country, by focusing on a smaller region of France.

Take the train from Provence back to Paris. It's fast and comfortable. Buy tickets in advance and it won't be that expensive.

Do use viamichelin.com for planning. Keep in mind that if you plan to stop and enjoy places on your drive, you may not be doing a lot of driving on the fast toll roads (which aren't cheap), so your driving time may be a lot longer. Local roads are often narrow and sometimes not well maintained. There are options on the Michelin site to add stops and/or avoid toll roads. I think I averaged about €0.10/kilometer in tolls. Be sure to have GPS!

With only 12 nights on the ground in Europe I would consider maximum 4 destinations with 3 nights at each. (3 destinations with 4 nights at each would be even better).
You currently have five - Amsterdam / Paris / Normandy / Provence / Nice+Cote d'Azur
I would keep it simple, flying in to Nice (4 nights), before heading to Provence (4 nts) and Paris (4 nts).

Hi,

"...we're kind of history geeks." If you have access to a rental car in Normandy, I certainly would take advantage of that to see as many of the battle sites as your schedule can fit. Where do you intend on getting the rental car? Next to the train station in Caen is a large rental car facility. That gives you much greater flexibility in getting around the outlying villages and fields outside of Caen. Or, you can drive west to Bayeux and still westward after that to see battle field and cemetery sites. The tourist office in the centre ville in Bayeux provides you with maps to track down sites you want to see.

I'm with those who advise bagging Amsterdam. Even with doing that, you don't have a huge amount of time for a country as big and varied as France. You could fly into Nice and give it a day. Some people don't like it, but I do. It will give you a taste of a French city other than Paris. It has some good art museums, good food, Roman ruins, and great outdoor spaces for people-watching.

I'd give Provence 2 or 3 days. Again, it's a large and varied region, with lots of Roman and medieval historic sites. Also great food and beautiful countryside.
Yes, Normandy needs more than 1 day.

Any remaining time should be spent in Paris.

Updated itinerary, still a work in progress...
Disclaimer, I haven't even looked at mileages yet so I could be overreaching?
Our flights and Nice & Paris hotels are already booked so I have to work around those.
Sept 10th - arrive Nice, don't land until late that night, hotel in Nice. Best place to rent car?
Sept 11th - Explore Nice, maybe Monaco (?), stay in Vence (?) (not that interested in sights right in Nice to stay longer, it just worked well for flights & we have a free hotel)
Sept 11th - explore Vence, stay in Provence (not sure where yet?)
Sept 12th - explore Provence, stay in Provence
Sept 13th - explore Provence, stay in Provence
Sept 14th - drive to Dordogne, stay in Dordogne (not sure where yet?)
Sept 14th - explore Dordogne, stay somewhere (not sure where yet?)
Sept 15th - drive to Normandy, stay in Normandy (not sure where yet?)
Sept 16th - explore Normandy, stay in Normandy
Sept 17th - explore Mont St Michel, not sure where to stay yet
Sept 18 - return rental car (easiest place to return car & get train?), train to Paris, hotel in Paris
Sept 19 - explore Paris, hotel in Paris
Sept 20- explore Paris, hotel in Paris
Sept 21 - 5pm depart Paris for US

Hmmm...started looking at the Michelin website and am now realizing may need to flip Mont St Michel and Normandy, due to direction of driving.
It's a long drive from Provence to Normandy/Mont St Michel so feel we should stop somewhere which is why I added Dordogne but there's still a good length drive on either side of Dordogne. Should I be thinking instead ditch the car, skip Dordogne, and find a train from Provence up to Normandy?
Thank goodness I have some time to iron out the middle details of this trip!

With just 11 nights you definitely need to reduce your driving burden.
Côte d'Azur - 3 nights
Provence - 3 nights
Lyon - 1 night
Dijon - 1 night
Paris - 3 nights

As others have noted, you are trying to do way too much. Paris is the jewel of France, you have not given it nearly enough time, 1 day in Normandy is not enough, definitely book a tour - you will learn so much and driving the narrow roads looking for the appropriate turn-off, difficult. With your time, Loire should not even be considered. If you must go to Nice, definetly fly. Driving long distances is a waste of precious time. Currently a fuel strike is causing many problems by Sept. It should be ok. We spent a month driving back roads in France last September. If not on the major highway, finding fuel can be challenging. Hope it goes well for you.

I agree with previous comments, you are going to enjoy better your stay if you select just a few places. It could even be better to choose either the north-west or the south-east part of France, since you don't have that much time to spend in France. If you chose Normandy, it would be worth considering exploring Bretagne and the Loire Valley as well, since these are scenic areas, with really varied interests, and it limits the waste of time driving.

No need to rent car in nice/Monaco. Use train or bus to go everywhere you want. I don't know about Vence. We drove in Nice last September and traffic there is horrible and scary and we would never do it again. This coming from somebody who likes to drive in France. We personally didn't care for Nice. My preference would be to go see the Roman ruins of Arles and the walled in city of Carcasonne. If you had the time I would sure see Dordogne on the way. It is spectacularly beautiful. That and Alsace/Lorraine (not on your schedule) was my favorite areas of France. But you do seem to be doing a lot for two weeks. If you go to Mont St. Michel, it makes sense to me to go there on the way to Normandy and stay one night on Mont St. Michel itself. We got there early evening, spent the night, saw the abbey the next morning and I think left around noon or 1 pm. That was enough time. I think if you then got to Bayeau, Normandy around 3 or 4 o'clock, you could see what you need to see of the Normandy beaches and the Bayeau tapestry in the next two full days and leave early the next morning for Paris. Or you might even be able to head to Paris late afternoon of the second full day of being in the Normandy area. I think it would be less than a 4 hr drive from Normandy to west side of Paris where you could drop off your car.

jtridle Thanks for the tip about not driving in Nice, I was on the fence about it and that helps alot. Thanks!!

You can also get to Vence on the bus from Nice, I've done it.

Kim - Thank you so much! This is great info and will save me renting a car sooner than I need or driving in Nice. Much appreciated!