Please Critique Our France-Italy Itinerary

Susan: This looks doable, although I have a few suggestions, as I am sure the other posters will as well. I do have a question, though. Will this trip be summer of 2011? If this is a late fall 2010/winter 2011 trip, I would advise against the CT. Assuming that it is a summer trip, my suggested itinerary would be slightly different from your original: Paris, arrival from US and 4 additional days. Day 6 TGV to St. Pierre des Corps/Tours and rent a car. Days 6, 7, 8 in the Loire based in Amboise or Chenonceaux. Day 9 Drive to Bayeux. Days 9, 10 Bayeux area. Day 11 Return car at Caen, train 1.5 hrs to Paris. Fly that afternoon to Venice. Days 11, 12, 13 Venice. Day 14 Train to Florence. Day 14, 15, 16 Florence. Day 17 Train to the CT. Days 17, 18 CT. Day 19 Train CT to Pisa or Milan (depending on availability of discount airlines) and fly to Paris. Last night in paris. Day 20 fly home from paris. It seems to me that this eliminates some back-tracking, and gives you the car that you will need to effectively see the Loire. Of course you could do Bayeux/Mont st Michel/D Day without a car, but this would be somewhat more difficult and time consuming. Sounds like a marvelous trip!

Looks good overall. Assuming you have no plans for Rome, I'd suggest the undetermined city be Lucca, which you could sandwich in between CT and Florence. Then just fly back from Florence. Lots of other possibilities.

Thank you both for the great advice - to answer your questions, we have been to Rome many times and love it but thought it was a little too far south to include on this itinerary. We are traveling in May 2011. Keep the suggestions coming, thank you !

I like Roe's suggestion a lot. I have another you might want to consider. Could you proceed directly to Amboise when you land? Skipping Paris, I mean. Then instead of that odd chopped-off night in Paris, you'd finish up with all five of your days there. ¶ Another move that would accomplish the same thing would be an early flight to deGaulle from Italy the day of your flight home[INVALID]if the schedule allows.

Combining Bayeaux and Loire in one trip really makes sense; eliminates a lot of your back and forth to Paris, wasting lots of vacation time "ommuniting". Can you do all your Paris time at the end (other than maybe a night between trains), makes the Paris portion much less stressful, and more productive- not so much packing and unpacking. I would also consider going direct to italy on your initial arrival in Paris; then do Bayeux and then Paris

Roe's plan is excellent. It's easier having a car for Bayeux and Loire, but I'd return the car to CDG instead of training there, for convenience.

Adam's suggestion of going straight from CDG to the Loire makes a lot of sense. There are indeed direct TGV trains which bypass Paris from CDG to St Pierre des Corps/Tours near Amboise. However, there aren't many of these. Most service is from CDG to Paris. However, playing with a random date in mid October, I found departures from CDG at 7:39, 9:12, and 13:37, all getting into ST PdC/Tours about an hour and 45 minutes later with no changes of train. Depending on when your flight arrives, and allowing for time to collect baggage, clear customs, etc, one of these might well fit your itinerary.

Wow, these are all such wonderful ideas - you people are awesome ! I too was concerned about the back tracking and hopping about that our plan entailed. Your suggestions to combine Bayeaux and the Loire are perfect and I think we will definitely do them with a car. I really liked the idea of going directly from CDG on our arrival to Venice, and then putting all of France together at the end of the trip. However, unless I'm looking at the wrong timetable, it looks to me like Easyjet has just one flight daily from CDG to Venice at 11:00 am, which won't give us enough time since we arrive from LAX at 9:40am. So perhaps we'll go straight to the Loire and Bayeux. Another question - is 3 nights in Amboise and 2 in Bayeux about right or would you recommend differently? We want to see a couple of chateaus and in Bayeaux do the Battlebus and we'd also like to see Mont St Michele if time allows. Then, we would go on to Italy (maybe lengthening our stays in Venice and/or Florence so we're not so rushed, and then finish up in Paris at the end. How does that sound?

3 days in Loire with a car would be about right- just dont try and see them all in that time. relax and enjoy. Bayeaux in 2 days is tight, again you wont see everything but you will hit the highlights. Three days would be better, you will spend some time travelling from Loire- but treat it as sightseeing and enjoy it

Consider staying in Tuscany instead of Florence.
We stayed in Florence then Siena and wished we had explored Tuscany and made a day trip to Florence.
Florence, while much to see, is not quite as charming as the other cities...