Two weeks in Europe with a car in Sept-Oct, in and out of Lyon

We've been to that area several times, and will be flying in and out of Lyon in April. There's the Beaujolais, Savoie, Jura, Annecy, to name just a few places. Here's the link to my travel blog. The entries in 2010, 2013, and 2015 cover those areas. http://mainelywinenews.blogspot.com/

You have many wonderful destinations within reach. Do not however discount the time involved in driving mountainous regions; I think it would be easy to be seduced by the promise of, say, Italy and not account for the time it will take to get there and back.

The Michelin guides would be especially helpful in planning a trip like this. I'd start with the Bugundy-Jura guide.

Finally, unless you have already bought airfare do not close the door on an open-jaw itinerary, which would put SW France within reach and might save you some money.

Thanks. I have been stalking Expedia for a couple of days and finally decided to bite the bullet and book something. Lo and behold! The prices spiked by $400+ in the wink of an eye. I am disgusted. And concerning the open jaw booking, Expedia seems to want to charge more for those.

Robert, I checked out your blog and it looks very interesting. Thanks. I will look at in greater detail soon.

We were in Lyon last September and loved that city - actually our entire trip. We started in Venice and ended up at Paris. Places in your general area we liked were Annecy - splurged and stayed at the Imperial Palace Hotel, and Torino, Italy - stayed at TownHouse 70, Via XX Settembre 70, which was a nice hotel with wonderful breakfast choices & very close to major sites.

By train, here's time distances:
Lyon-to-Annecy: 2 hours
Annecy-to-Torino: 3.75 hours

I definitely concur with previous advice to book an open-jaw flight, so you can maximize your time & experiences.

If you're at Annecy, be sure to go to Pan & Gato boulangerie at 6 Rue du Pré d'Avril for croissants or pastries. We were in Annecy three days and looked forward to each morning when we could walk into that shop - just amazing!

Does anyone have any suggestions concerning open jaw bookings? I am not familiar with that concept.

Open-jaw means flying into one airport and out of another one. On websites, there will be some kind of multi-destination option to click instead of "round trip."

viamichelin.com is a great tool for estimating driving times and costs (gas, tolls, etc.).

It's cheaper to drop a French rental car anywhere within France than in a neighboring country. So you might easily fly out from Nice, for instance, or if heading north and flying out of Geneva or Basel/Mulhouse, then confirm a car drop on the French side of the airport.

Just on the open jaw issue . . . Look at airlines' own websites. We do open jaw for most of our trips. Even without considering the money and time expended for getting back to an original point, I've rarely seen a price that was more than the sum of half of each rt fare. As a previous poster said, check the multi-destination box. What will come up is a way to put in the different trip legs. Easy easy.

Ditto to the way to get an open jaw flight. That is the only way we fly now. Just like Rosalyn said, choose multi-destinations.

We have been flying open jaw to Europe for decades. It saves huge amounts as it is generally no more expensive than a round trip ticket and saves the cost of backtracking in both time and money. This year we flew into Moscow and home from Paris, last year into Vienna and home from Paris, the year before into Paris and home from Madrid and the year before that into Rome and home from Amsterdam. It is easy to do where major cities are concerned and saves time, money and aggravation.

If I were doing this trip, I would base in a couple of places and do day trips with maybe a few days on the road in between. We did this this summer/fall with a longer time frame e.g. into Paris from Russia then 2 days traveling south stopping in picturesque towns for the night and then a week in a rental in Perigord and then a day on the road and two weeks in Roquebrune Cap Martin with day trips and then 2 nights in the Ardecche forrest to see the Chauvet replica at Valons Pont d'Arc and then a day on the road to Paris with a stop in Auxerre and then a month in Paris. With a big city like Lyon day tripping involves the hassle of getting out of town -- I'd choose a smaller town in the region for a base. We used Semur en Auxois for this a few years ago but there will be towns closer to the areas you want to tour.

It is nice to have a base and not have to back up and move every night or two and we don't like touring with luggage in the car -- we know people who have had everything stolen and it is a continuous risk. It also means you really have to lug your valuables with you at every stop and we travel with heavy cameras and computers and such.