Need advice 7 days - Provence, Haute Pyranees and/or Languedoc

Hi Justine... We were on some of these areas in October and November on a photo trip.....for 6weeks. If you are coming from Paris...CDG.....and want to go to all these areas..I really do not think it is possible in 7days.I assume you are driving. the areas you mention are lovely, but fairly far apart. Lourdes is a long way from Paris and there are lovely places in between that would be great to stay in to roam around the villages, but I really feel you cannot do that in a week. You could drive from Paris..get the car at Orly...down to Burgundy, stay a night or two, then down to Provence for a couple of nights, but then Lourdes is way west and south at least one really long day.Then if you are there for a couple of days...well you do not have any days to get back up to Paris. It is a shame because the area from Carcassonne up through the Aveyron and the Charolais Brionnais area to Paris is soo lovely.We spent several weeks in this area on the way to Paris and the little villages are wonderful........Caunes-Minervois, Sauveterre, Belcastel, Iguarande, St. julien de Civry.Let me know if I can be of any help in accommodations in these areas.

One way you could do it would be to take a TGV from Paris to Lourdes, spend a night, explore Lourdes, then rent a car and drive to Languedoc &/or Provence, using whatever route you prefer. TGV from Paris to Lourdes will take 6 hours or so, and Lourdes itself takes a good half-day. When you're done in Languedoc/Provence, you could then easily return to Paris via TGV from Avignon. But you will want a car to explore Languedoc/Provence. To give you an idea of distances, Lourdes to Avignon is 500 Km. But the roads are good and the driving is easy.

As I understand you question, you only have a week total. I think the only way you could hope to do this would be to fly into and out of the south open-jaw: Lourdes, Toulouse, Marseilles. Since you are booked into and out of deGaulle, I'd scale back. Paris + Provence is most feasible, and there's even a train from Provence that will get you to back the airport by 10:30 AM the day of your flight home. I realize this is probably not what you want to hear. Other options are possible, but you'd be spending a great deal of your time on trains and planes and very little in the places that interest you. I do think that the best trips are informed by a sober assessment of what works.