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Paris to D-Day tour, then back to Italy, without a car

Posted by (Alameda, CA, U.S.) on

My sister and I are trying to plan a trip from Paris to the D-day sites, all without a car on 6/28/10. I'm 24 so we can't rent a vehicle. We will have youth Euro-rail passes for France/Italy. Here are our questions:

1) How do we get from Paris to Bayeux? (we can leave really early in the morning. I really can't figure this out on the euro-rail site!)

2) We were thinking of seeing the tapestry and walking around the town in the morning, then going on a D-day tour in the afternoon. Where can we locate a good tour-group for that?

3) Finally, we need to head back towards Italy since we fly out of Rome early in the morning on July 3rd. We know we'll need to spend a night in Bayeux (the 29th), but how should we travel from there to either Milan or Venice? (We feel that we can't go to Italy without seeing Venice, so we're trying to squeeze that in before we head back in Rome on the 2nd, the day before our flight.) We're fine seeing and staying at one other French city on the way--any recommendations? I've been looking at the Dordogne, but once again have no clue about where to stay and how to get there on our way back to Italy. Honestly, I have no idea if it's even possible to see more on the way towards Venice--meaning, if we can fit that all in.

Thanks!

Posted by
9110 posts

"great new website"

Momondo has been around since 2006.

Posted by
8700 posts

The earliest you can leave Paris is 07:07. Change in Caen and arrive in Bayeux at 09:29.

Battlebus gets great reviews, but it only does all-day tours and the company requires its customers to spend the night before the tour within 50 minutes travel time to Bayeux. For an afternoon tour you could choose Overlordtour.

You wouldn't have to spend a night in Bayeux. You could take an evening train from Bayeux to Paris, spend the night, and take a morning easyJet flight from Orly to Venice. That would maximize your time in Italy.

If your only train rides are Paris-Bayeux, Bayeux-Paris, and Venice-Rome, point-to-point tickets will be cheaper than a railpass.

Here's another scenario that also would give you more time in Italy: Take an evening train from Paris to Bayeux and spend the night. Take a morning Overlordtour. See the Bayeux Tapestry in the early afternoon and take a train back to Paris in time to catch the direct night train to Venice.

Posted by
4 posts

Thanks so much for the advice thus far!

Here are the problems I'm running into.

We decided to do eurorail because we will be in Italy for a week before we even go to France Here's our itinerary up until the D-day question I had: Rome, Florence, and Pisa on the way to Nice, then Paris, then the D-day trip. Since we already have the eurorail pass, I don't think it best for us to do the flights or the other website for rail. The euro-rail website is impossible to figure out how to get from one city to the next...

We thought, tentatively, that perhaps we could go from Paris, to Bayeaux (D-day tour!), to Dordogne (Carcassonne?), and then to Milan, Venice, and back to Rome for our departing flight, all from June 28th to July 2nd. I don't know if this is feasible. I look at the geography and it looks OK--but I don't know how to figure out the railway. We don't have to go to Dordogne--I'm just in to seeing at least one French/Italian town (or more!) that isn't completely "touristy" but that is still accessible without a car.

I guess I'm trying to make this as complicated as possible!

Keep that advice coming!

Thank you.

Posted by
403 posts

Dear Monica:
This is a lot of traveling, but....
As far as I can tell, your best itinerary would be as follows
June 28 train from paris to Bayeux. Night in Bayeux.
June 29 Battlebus tour of the DDay beaches. Evening train to paris. Night in Paris.
June 30 TGV from paris to Milan. Change to train for Venice. Night in Venice.
July 1 Venice
July 2 Train from Venice to Rome. Night in Rome.
July 3 fly home from Rome.
If this strikes you as reasonable, you can easily plan it by rail. Check out Rick Steves advice on this same web site...he has a great explanation for using the DB web site to check train times. The only leg of this trip that would require reservations would be the TGV from Paris to Milan. Otherwise, there are plenty of trains Paris-Bayeux and Venice-Milan, Venice-Rome.

Posted by
8700 posts

As Roe said, use www.bahn.de for train timetables. After you get summary timetables for point A to point B, click on the arrow to the left of each departure time to see the connecting points, if any.

Bayeux-Paris-Carcassonne-Milan-Venice would be a very roundabout and time-consuming route. Not feasible.

A better route might be Bayeux-Paris-Strasbourg-Milan-Venice. Strasbourg would be a great place to spend a day and a night.

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