Our 14 days France Itinerary

Frank, you have obviously done your homework on this thoughtful itinerary. You could reasonably expect to make it to Onzain in five hours, at least if you plan a quick lunch. Were I to make a suggestion, it would be that the overnight in Avignon does not seem worth the trouble. Could you catch a cheap flight to Nice, returning your car at the airport? You could spend the extra day in Normandy. Oh, and fly home from Nice. Alternatively forget Nice and spend four days in Provence. You may find it is the highlight of your trip. Return options would be (1) Marseilles or (2) early TGV direct to deGaulle.

The drive that's bugging you is an easy four hours. All except the first ten miles out of MSM and the twenty or so right after Fougeres is freeway - - you'll be going eighty just to keep in the flow of traffic. Therefore: Stop in Fougeres for a couple of hours. You won't regret it. I agree completely with Adam about a better way to spend time in southern France.

I found out about flying out of Nice after the flight tickets are booked. so yeah... I am totally losing a day just by being on the train back to Paris from Nice.

the thoughts behind putting Avignon in the itinerary was because to us, if we take a train from Onzain to Nice, it would be like a whole 9 hour train ride, we thought to break that up with Avignon in the middle... by doing that we took a day out of normandy specifically Giverny, so we won't have to stay on the train for 8-9 hours and arrive in nice late at night... what do you think?

I would agree with Adam- too many days in Nice. It has an interesting (small) old town area, and is convenient to visit Monaco; but I would prefer to spend those days in Provence and only use Nice as my departure point

Day 11: If you can, include Chenonceau. Day 09: Mt Saint Michel will not need any time that morning, the evening will have been enough. So an early start will be fine. IMO, I think that you are seriously shortchanging yourselves with the south this time, both for Provence and for Nice and its surroundings (of which I am a big fan of the latter). Nice, Provence (and the southwest) of itself would make a very nice two week trip. Nice also makes a decent arrival airport if you'd like to head into Italy... All this to say that you may want to avoid going so far out of the bulk of your itinerary for so little time, especially since you have to backtrack to Paris to boot. Here's a suggestion: why not keep the car for a little longer and head towards the Dordogne instead? 3 nights there would be just right, before you return the car and head back to Paris. (from Brive-la-Gaillarde - direct train, from Périgueux or Bergerac, one connection to a TGV.)

I suggest keeping Giverny in the mix and staying in Avignon, rather than going to Nice and Monaco. There is plenty to do in and around Avignon for two or three days.

Agree that drive to Onzain should not be a problem; about 3½ hrs nonstop. Days 12-15 need some work to reduce travel time. If you prefer to spend more time on the Riviera, on Day 12 turn your car in at Orly Airport (about a 2 hr drive from Onzain). Easyjet has 3 flights a day from Orly to Nice. The mid-day flight departs at 13:20 & arrives at 14:50. Current fare is € 37 each way in 1st week of Sept, so you & gf could go round trip for just over total $200 if you booked now. Easyjet also goes from Nice to CDG if you wanted to return there on Day 15 instead of ORY.

I wish we can fly out of nice instead of back in paris. Unfortunately, when I booked the tickets, they were onsale round trip lax-cdg including tax for 2 people for 1000 dollars including taxes and surcharges. It was way too hard for me to pass up such a good offer. At the same time we really want to see Nice and Monaco.
So we don't mind giving up a day at the Provence. After all if we like a specific area, we will be back. Any recommended stops between Avignon and Nice for Day 13? Should we stop and maybe have lunch and spend a few hours in Arles? Maybe Pont du Gard?

Frank, the Pont du Gard is a magnificent Roman antiquity, but it is not enroute. Arles, with its Roman ruins, is more on the way, but if that is what you are interested in you might consider staying in Arles, not Avignon. I still think you'd be better off flying directly to Nice, if that is your priority. You could spend your next-to-last day in Avignon and catch the early TGV direct to Charles deGaulle, if your return flight is in the afternoon. Or find a flight from Nice to deGaulle.

It will be quite busy in the south of France at this time but you must rethink the south - it will be a highlight of your trip. Avoid tourist crowds by seeing lovely quaint towns in the Rhone Valley around Gigondas, the Luberon Valley will be mobbed but there are some great places to lunch (Auberge de la Loube, in Buoux comes to mind); and Casis - a really quaint fishing town are all worthy. Also if you can't spend time driving through the South and need a stopover city, def go with Aix over Avignon.