My husband and I will be flying from Vienna to Paris in October. When we land in Paris, we were planning on renting a car and going to Normandy for 5 days to see the D Day beaches and also to go to see the Musée des Blindés. Is 5 days enough time to do this? I then thought we would return the car in Paris and spend a couple of days in Paris. Is the airport the best place to rent the car? When we return to Paris, do hotels near the airport have shuttles to tourist attractions in Paris. I don't want to be driving a car in the city of Paris. The other possibility is flying from Vienna to Brussels - stay at Bastogne for 2 -3 days, drive to Normandy for 4 - 5 days and then back to Brussels to fly home. Is that too much driving? Thanks for your help.
Posted by
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
2775 posts
I know nothing about Musee des Blindes or where it is, but five days is plenty of time to see the D-Day beaches along with many of the WWII sites. You could get by with less; it all depends on what you want to see. I love Normandy, so I think five days would be heaven. On the other hand, if this is your first time in Paris, you might want to allocate less time to Normandy and more to Paris. If you are flying into CDG, then it seems to me you might as well rent the car there. Otherwise, you will have to pay for a train to get you someplace where you will rent a car. Maybe someone else will have a reason not to rent at the airport, but I can't think of one. As for staying at hotels near the airport, why would you want to do that? Why not drop the car off at the airport and stay in Paris? Why would you want to keep the car if you are flying home from Paris? (I'm assuming that is what you are doing.) I'm guessing airport hotels are only going to have shuttles to the airport, from where you can get to Paris by bus or RER, but that's going to take a fair amount of time. I can't think of any reason why you would want to do this. As for the idea to fly to Brussels and spend time at Bastogne in lieu of Paris - I rather like Bastogne, but it certainly can't compare to Paris. It all depends on your interests and where you have and haven't been. You can check Michelin to see how long it takes to get from Bastogne to Normandy, but I'm thinking it's a pretty fair haul. This option doesn't really appeal to me, but maybe it makes sense for you. I just don't know what you are trying to accomplish with this trip.
Posted by
Dallas, Texas, USA
501 posts
I think you would really like the Bastogne/Liege area, but maybe not on this trip. You will need a car with GPS for sure. Drop by Luxembourg while your in the area. The city of Spa, is interesting, a good place to spend one night possibly. Plug in questions about Bastogne in search box and pull up "old" postings, this topic has been covered in the past.