We are scheduled for a 7 day tour of Paris in April. Our plan is to arrive 2 days early for jet lag and to do a Normandy Dday tour. Any suggestions? First time visitor!
Joyce from SC
Posted by
Washington DC
27812 posts
The D-Day sites in Normandy are quite far from Paris. A Paris-based tour will consign you to many hours sitting on a bus. It's a great deal of transportation without a lot of payoff. I also do not recommend half-day tours, which are offered by more than one tour company, I believe. Those tours, like most others, originate in Bayeux. The D-Day sites are not in Bayeux, and it takes some time to travel to them, between them and then back to Bayeux. By the time you discount all that driving around, there's not a lot of touring time left on a half-day tour.
It would be much, much better if you could spend at least one night in Bayeux. That would allow you a bit of time for the other worthwhile sights in the town, which include the Bayeux Tapestry, the cathedral, the lovely historic center and the invasion museum.
If that is absolutely impossible, the best I can recommend is Overlord Tour's 2FS tour, which is a full-day tour designed for people staying in Paris. Clients must take the early train up to Bayeux. The tour van meets them right at the Bayeux train station and takes them back to the station at the end of the day. You'd need to think seriously about how you would feel about a very early wake-up call on your first full day in Paris. (I'd hate it.) Perhaps you'd be able to get some sleep on the train as it heads north...
Normandy is a lovely region with a lot of worthwhile places to visit. Could you possibly extend your trip a bit so you have more than 1-1/2 days before your tour starts?
Posted by
Chicago
1057 posts
Additionally to the suggestion above, Overlord has a half day tour that might work for you. It involves a half day Omaha Beach tour -afternoon with return in time to catch a 6:30 PM train back to Paris. You could arrive in the AM in Bayeux and see the Tapestry prior to the trip to Omaha.
https://www.overlordtour.com/product/tour-1-omaha-half-day-tour/
Posted by
L'Occitanie, France
10578 posts
With a 6-hour time difference, do you think you will be able to get up in the wee early hours for a very long tour on the first or second day after an overnight flight and jetlag? Is there any way to tack this onto the end of the tour instead?
If not, go directly to Bayeux for the first night. Let your head air out from the trip the first full day. Second morning that you wake up in Bayeux, meet a tour group around 9. Have the tour group drop you at the train station at the end for the 6 pm train back to Paris. Sleep in Paris and start your Paris tour the next day. You would have to deal with your luggage.
Posted by
Boston
128 posts
Hi,
Echoing the same thoughts as the others: it is better off to spend a night in Bayeux. I posted a very similar inquiry as yours when I went to Paris in November, 2023. We took an early train from Gare St Lazare and made it to Bayeux by 11:30: walked to our AirBnB and spent rest of the day at the Cathedral, the Tapestry, the British Cemetery and the W W II Memorial, along with walking the town.
Then had a 7:30 tour with Overlord Tours the next morning and they were spectacular: the tour guide dropped us off at 6:15 PM at the train station in time for a direct train back to Paris.
To each his own, but it was very much worth it and I'd do that way again. . . .
Posted by
Wyckoff, NJ, USA
7807 posts
Posted by
OP
2 posts
Thank you all so much! I think about staying closer for our first couple of days!
Posted by
San Francisco, CA
4 posts
Hello! My family just returned yesterday from a two week France trip. We started in Paris and then travelled by train to Bayeaux. We did an all day tour of the DDay beaches with Jordan from Bayeaux Shuttle. It was excellent. You visit beaches, memorials, cemeteries, museums, little towns where paratroopers landed. It was a large van that fit up to 20 people. There was a group that had come from Paris as a day trip. They got a very early train from Paris to Bayeaux. The tour starts at the train station at 8:55am and ends there at 5 ish. So it is possible. Although, I enjoyed seeing Bayeaux too. We visited the Bayeaux tapestry which had a neat audio tour. It is closing for renovations though so I’d check availability. Back to the DDay tour, Jordan was entertaining and knowledgeable. In my family we had folks that knew little about WW2 and several that are history buffs. Everyone enjoyed the trip so it did well with different levels of experience. https://bayeuxshuttle.com/