Travel.from.St..Avold.to CDG

Gail, Reims is a very good place to stop. The cathedral is beautiful. Nearly every French king was crowned there. There are champagne tasting options right in town, and the mueseum of surrender for WWII. You can walk from the cathedral to the surrender museum and to one of the major champagne houses for a tour and tasting. (I can't reecall which one.) Also, there are tours of champagne wineries you can take from Reims. The town of Hautvilliers is not far. Dom Periognon is buried there in a sweet little church. We drove there after leaving Reims on our way to CDG to stay the night before our flight.
Enjoy!

Great idea to drop car the night before the flight and have a hotel on the CDG Val. PLan to get dinner on the road.

Thanks so much Reims it is. This has been a hard trip to plan as meeting son and wife in Paris and traveling around for a week with them then we continue on to UK. Purpose is to take them to Normandy and then going to Lorraine Cemetery to see my fathers grave so lots of emotions here too. We all.realize thus will be the last.time. We have been there before but this is special visit.

I like Reims. As stated above the cathedral and area around it are attractive and interesting. If you have any interest in old cars there's a good French car museum in town. As you walk around the cathedral try to picture the area at the end of WWI; the cathedral was hit by over 200 large caliber artillery shells and the whole of the area around it was just an overlapping field of shell holes.

If you're not in a hurry to get from St Avold to Reims I suggest you take some of the smaller roads and transverse the Meuse Argonne battlefield. Stop in Varennes-en-Argonne or Montfaucon. And you should stop in Chateau Thierry enroute between Reims and CDG and see the monument there and the cemetery at Belleau Woods just down the road.

If you have time on the 13th consider getting your hotel closer to Bourget airfield. It will be cheaper, and it's only a 20 minute cab ride away. I suggest this because the Musee de Air at Bourget is one of the best aviation museums in the world and well worth a couple hours visit.

Gail, what a special trip. I hope everything will go smoothly for you on your last visit to your father's grave,

I also agree with the idea of going to Reims. It's a wonderful little city with lots to offer. Forum members have given you great ideas.

Since you have been to the cemetery before, I imagine that you know this, but you can contact the Cemetery ahead of time and they will prepare for your visit.

The phone number for the Lorraine American Cemetery is
+33.87.92.07.32

But it's probably easiest to submit your request (inform them you are family members coming to honor your father) on their online form and someone will email you back. The form for all cemeteries is on this page.

https://www.abmc.gov/contact-us?id=14287

Kim.thanks for your trouble looking up all.that information. We have been twice before and my son went another time and we just show up no appointment necessary per.the ABMC.in DC. Once we arrive at the office and tell them why we are there everyone stops and we have been told family members get top priority and it surely shows. Last.visit the commander was away for the afternoon and his second in command was leading a school group. She was notified a family was there and she immediately left the tour group to tend to us. Totally unexpected. Even if one does not have any family member buried overseas I encourage any traveler to visit a US cemetery to see how lovingly our service members are treated.

About 20 years ago I visited the U. S. military cemetery at St. Avold to see the grave of my father's close friend who died in November 1944. May your April visit there be very meaningful....and hoping all logistics of traveling in France go smoothly.