We are planning a trip to France and Switzerland in June 2020. We will be in Toulouse, before heading to Switzerland, and want to explore someplace new on the way. What would you suggest for a two night stay between the two locations? We have stayed in Lucerne, and taken the TGV from Paris to Basel on a previous trip, but continued directly on from Basel to Lucerne, so only saw the train station there.
Thanks for any suggestions!
Laurie
Montpellier, Narbonne, Nimes and Lyon are possibilities if you take the southern route. Two nights would be a short stay in Lyon, though.
Or if you route yourself through Paris, you could choose Strasbourg, but that would be 2/3 of the way to Lauterbrunnen.
Acraven, thanks for your suggestions. I was thinking about Strasbourg also but wondered if it was too far out-of-the-way? What would you recommend to see in Lyon if we went there?
We would be traveling by train, and could leave from Cahors or Toulouse. I was thinking about Chamonix also, but that experience might be quite similar to what we’re hoping to do in Switzerland. We were interested in discovering a new area we haven’t seen yet for this in-between time.
Thanks,
Laurie
Oh, I liked Cahors!
If you search for train routings between Toulouse and Lauterbrunnen, you'll find some run through Montpellier and some shoot north to Paris. At least some of the trains on the Parisian route stop in Strasbourg (or that might be one of the transfer points), so stopping there wouldn't add much time to the trip, but it is a long slog from Toulouse to Strasbourg; it's nowhere near the mid-point of the trip.
In that regard, Lyon fits better, but it has more than 1.5 days' worth of sights--a very large number of good museums on a wide variety of subjects, Old Lyon, and the Presqu'ile area. Google museums Lyon for a quick look at the museum options. Really, Lyon is sort of a mini-Paris. Unless you hate museums of all types, you'll need to move rapidly to get a decent look at the city in the amount of time you will have. I spent several nights there but only scratched the surface. I liked the Resistance Museum, the Textile Museum, the Decorative Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts. Others have spoken highly of the the Confluence Museum (science and anthropology), the Gallo-Roman Museum and the Cinema Museum. It's a really interesting city with a lot to offer.
I haven't been to Chamonix. I thought Annecy was a gorgeous town in a gorgeous setting, but it was incredibly crowded in June 2017. It was also terribly hot, and many of the budget-level lodgings are not air conditioned. Chamonix is at altitude, so heat probably wouldn't be an issue there.
With such a long distance, and mountains, you really will not have much time to explore. So I hope you will at least price flying from Toulouse to Zurich or Mulhouse. This will give you more time on the ground for sightseeing versus transportation.
Adam, thank you - I came to a similar conclusion and was pricing flights to Strasbourg, Basel, and Bern. Geneva still seems to be a long train ride. What is in Mulhouse? I see it is close to Basel, but am not familiar with that city.
We are visiting friends in Cahors, so that part is firm. We definitely want to end in Murren...or thereabouts. It's the in between part we are considering, and there are some good choices!
I appreciate the replies so far. I am curious about Lyon - have never been there!
Thanks,
Laurie
