Planning on spending al least one night at hotel in order to take early train to CDG. My wife and I like to walk around interesting cities and enjoy the unique shops.
Is Bourges interesting enough to spend 1 1/2 days (2 nights) or should we limit it to mid-morning and 1 night?
Posted by
Olympia, WA, USA
6713 posts
We liked Bourges, the cathedral is one of the best we've seen in France, and the Jacques Coeur house is fine also. It's a pleasant walkable center. We liked the Christina Hotel, http://www.le-christina.com/en/. A full day there would be fine (we didn't have that long unfortunately).
Posted by
Texas
531 posts
Arriving mid-morning and staying overnite should be enough....you didn't say when you were going....hope you can catch the Illuminated Nights.
Posted by
Vancouver, BC, Canada
175 posts
There's a little tourist train that leaves from in front of the cathedral - it wanders through the medieval parts of the town and is well-worth the
30 min or so it takes. IMHO, one night would be enough - esp. if it's raining.
Posted by
Twin Cities, Minnesota
2000 posts
I was in Bourges in 2011 on a RS tour and we stayed in a Best Western centrally located. I don't remember it's name, but you should be able to find doing an on-line search. We were there late afternoon and the morning of the next day and saw alot. We saw the cathedral, did a hosted walk & went to the farmer's market in the morning. I really enjoyed our stop there and think you will, too. The historic area is so compact that I think one night would be enough, although I wished we could have stayed longer.
Posted by
OP
Rockport, Maine, USA
98 posts
Thanks for the info. We leave from CDG mid-afternoon on a Sunday, May 18th. In lieu of driving back to CDG, we were planning to leave from a city which would allow us to take the train directly into CDG. We have done this before from Angouleme and it works out well. There are four cities that would work: Bordeaux, Lyon, Limoges and Bourges. We selected Bourges because we thought that it might be interesting and also less hassle than the larger cities of Bordeaux and Lyon and Limoges didn't look that interesting. We can always change if needed. But if we do decide to go thought Bourges, the question is how much time to we spend in the city itself. Our problem is do we want to arrive in Bourges Friday afternoon and stay till Sunday or arrive mid-day Saturday?
Bill
Posted by
Portland, Maine
2916 posts
Years ago we arrived in Bourges mid-afternoon and spent one night there, and I enjoyed it and felt we saw a lot in that short time. However, we didn't see anything in particular or any particular area where we thought: "I wish we had more time to explore that." On the other hand, I'd be happy to go back. So I guess it partly depends on where you would spend the extra time if you only stay in Bourges for one night. Is there a place en route you really want to see?