England/France itinerary question

Christine: I'm impressed that your sons are so interested in history at an age when many teenagers turn off. I don't think Memorial Day, a purely American holiday instituted after the Civil War, will have any effect on Europe whatever. However, close to June 6th will be busy in Normandy given the anniversary of D Day, and you might google "Bank Holidays 2011" to see when Bank Holiday weekends fall in England next year. You might consider taking the ferry from Portsmouth either to St Malo, which I think all of the teenagers would enjoy, and going from there into Brittany and Normandy, or the ferry to Arromanche (Caen), which has the advantage of coming in to one of the D Day beaches as in 1944, from the sea. Ed or one of the other posters can advise you about car rentals at Arromanche, but I know there are agencies at St Malo and Caen. I dont see why flying to Paris and returning from London would be a problem..just reverse the sequence of your itinerary. If renting a gite is difficult, consider a B&B, which exist in plentitude in Normandy. RS lists several good ones in his books. Even if your boys could spend a week doing D Day, you might restrict them to three days to open some space for Paris. Paris, believe me, is worthwhile, and besides, the Battle of Normandy conventionally concludes with the Liberation of Paris on August 25th, 1944. Also, consider where you want to return the car. Perhaps Chartres or Versailles? Not downtown Paris, for sure.

If you can work out a few more days in London, I think you'd find lots to see/do related to WWI and WWII. There are the Churchill war rooms, as well as other sites. I'd also encourage you to visit Dover. Not only is there the castle, but lots of WWII weapons, bunkers, etc. Maybe you could stretch things to 3 weeks?

General FITW comments on apportionment of time with rationale. You don't have enough time to scratch the surface on London in a day and a half at most - - I'm taking a buddy there later this week and hope to do most of it in three days (We were there last year and he spent two full days in the British Museum - - I'm hiding it from him this time). I can whirlwind somebody through Paris in a hard day and a half if the only museum is the Louvre and I give them the thirty minute bum's rush for the big three. Four days can give you the essence of the city. Versailles will eat up a half day, minimum, and is a third-tier attraction - - give the time to Paris. Normandy can be done in two days, three is a leisurely overkill for most folks, even fitting in the Bayeux tapestry and hitting both the Bayeux and Caen war museums - - make it four to gain more time elsewhere..........Ferries. I'm stumped on a fast ferry from Portsmouth to Le Havre, the only one I know about takes eight hours or so. The ferry from Portsmouth to Ouistreham (the Caen ferry port) would be a neat apporach like Roe said, but it sticks in my mind that the only one with a daylight arrival leaves Portsmout at seven or eight in the morning, which really screws up your schedule. To save time, I think I'd take the eurostar from London to Calais - - it should take about an hour and I think there's a couple that leave early in the morning and one real late at night. A train guru will have to step up to the plate here, I've exhaused my knowledge. From Calais, it's a three-hour drive to Caen. (If you go into Ouistreham, there's no car rental place there, but there are frequent buses to the Caen train station with a host of car places across the street.) Directferries.co.uk is a good place to fiddle with the ferry business.........For gites, gitesdefrance.com is a really good source.......

.......Misc car stuff. If you decide to go to Versailles, drop the car there and take the train into Paris since it's just about as fast. If you decide to skip Versailles and drive down to Paris, it's not hard to get to a drop point, but I won't bore you to tears unless you need it. Let me know pronto or wait until after Thanksgiving - - it's my turn to travel.......My most earnest advice is to skip England and stay in France; if you don't, all you're going to be doing is dashing around.

Not from US so not sure when Memorial Day is, but remember each country has its own holidays, so if these are a concern, check the holidays for the countries you are visiting, not the US holidays.

As far as Memorial Day, the reason I brought it up is in the London book Rick Steves mentions that as being a weekend you should circle in red on the calendar. I wasn't sure how crowded it would be if we ended our trip there instead of starting it. I wasn't sure how crowded was crowded.

Christine: I'm impressed that your sons are so interested in history at an age when many teenagers turn off. Well, I homeschool and I've never used dry textbooks to teach history. We find tons of good books about the subject. My middle one has read every Jeff Shaara and David McCoullough bookd ever written. Now that they are high school age, the books are more scholarly but still interesting. We also watch tons of documentaries. Plus we read historical fiction based in the time and always go places if we can. Last year we studied the Civil War and since we had already been to the ones in Virginia and Maryland we took a week trip in our trailer to Vicksburg, Chickamauga, and Shiloh. We listen to audiobooks on our long trips as well. We listened to McCoullough's Truman on our trip to Colorado last month. I've got an audio book by the man from Band Of Brothers (I've gone blank on the name and don't want to wake up hubby to look.) for us to listen to while we are there.. ( Not sure my boys are quite old enough to watch that excellent HBO series.

I really did want to spend 4 days in London. Yes, the war cabinet rooms and war museums are a must. I also have a book called London's War: A Traveler's Guide to world War II and it has some interting walks in there. Since we have been watching Fears's lectures on Churchill as well as reading a lot about him and watching documentaries, I had strongly thought about visiting Chartwell. I had thought that we could have one of the guides where you can do a family tour take us to Chartwell and then possibly on to Porstmouth and spend the night so we are ready to leave on the early morning ferry. Ill check on other ferries you mentioned as possibilities. Thanks everyone. Christine

Nut's, I misread the number of days in London - - disunregard anything I said about a lack of time. EDIT: If you have time to kill in Portsmouth, HMS Victory is a bit famous from an earlier war and the Royal Marine Museum gives a different aspect of some of WW II. They're close together.

Christine - Have you and your family read "Is Paris Burning?"? It's a riveting read and would fit right into your trip.

We drove from Paris to Normandy & Brittany last month. Weekends are very busy. I was unable to book a D Day tour months in advance and lodging was difficult as well. Make sure you get a GPS and be prepared for tollroads. We got lost everywhere we went! Ed suggested lodging, and driving tour for us from Paris to St. Malo and back. His sidetrips were wonderful. He also got us easily back into Paris avoiding the tangles we had getting out 2 days before. If you plan to include Utah Beach and St. Mere Eglise, be prepared to drive because they are about 45 mins. from Omaha Beach. Also, I was surprised how early things closed. Start your days early. Have fun!

Christine, isn't Rufus Fears 'fearsome'?!? (sorry - hangs head in shame) Seriously, all of his lectures have a permanent place on my family's iPods............Forgive me if it's already been mentioned (looked and didn't see it), but D-Day commemorative events can cause some trouble the first week of June, so you might want to consider that. Also, although you probably don't want to spend their kind of money for a family of 5, do check out the website for Battlebus Tours in Normandy for ideas on building an itinerary (of course, you would have an entire bus to yourselves...at a rate of €425 per day...). Rent "Is Paris Burning" if time is short; I thought the movie did a good job, too. There are many commemorative plaques all over Paris; sobering.........And don't panic, but you can't book too early for Normandy...TRUST ME. Now would be good. (grew up in Jacksonville, so 'Hi!')

Hi Christine, my husband and I and our two sons, 15 and 12, did London/Normandy/Paris this past summer. We started in London, and after much time researching different alternatives on how to get from London to Normandy we ended up taking the Eurostar to Lille, then renting a car there and driving down to Bayeux. We dropped the car in Caen two days later and then took the train into Paris. The Eurostar only goes into Calais a couple of times a day and as I understand it the car rental in Calais is not at the train station. London to Lille worked great. Our car rental at the Lille station was one of the easiest car rental pick-ups we've ever done. If you go this route take note that the Eurostar comes into Lille Europe, not Lille Flanders. There are two train stations so make sure that your rental car is at the Lille Europe station. We enjoyed the very pretty drive through Normandy down to Bayeux via Honfleur. We did the Battlebus one day American Highlights tour and our boys, big DDay experts like yours, loved it. We took a second day to drive around on our own to sites the tour didn't hit, like the gun batteries at Longues-sur-mer and the german cemetery. I love Paris but my husband and sons liked London and Normandy much better than Paris. We all enjoyed Versailles, be sure to rent bikes there. You'll have a great time!

Sounds like a great trip. Normandy is amazing in many ways. ________ While in Paris consider a Paris Walks tour of WW II sites. There is still plenty of physical evidence of the war if you have someone point it out. _______. You have plenty of running around to do, but I want to make a pitch for at least a day in Flanders. The WW I sites are an interesting contrast to WW II sites.

Thanks everyone. Yes, I was definitely going to to do a tour. Battlebus is one I had looked at. I am a little concerned about my 8yo as she probably won't find it as fascinating as the rest of us, but she is used to our traveling around and visiting historical sites all the time. She just enjoys the people instead of the museums/ exhibits! I'm going to use the money we are saving using our air miles for flights toward things like that!! Yikes, as soon as we get the tickets in the next day or two, I'll work on the gite and booking the tours. I have a friend whose dad lost a brother at D-day, so I might visit his cross. II'll put the Paris burning in my amazon cart right now. I had also printed Rick's books page, so I'll see if there is anything else. I might save it for the plane for some of us.. Christine Christine Christine