My husband and are are traveling this December. We fly in to Paris and would like to rent a car and drive to San Sebastian, and then onto Bilbao to visit family. We are looking for a scenic route with any recommended cities/villages to stop and stay along the way.
Posted by
US Pacific Northwest
10344 posts
One of many possible routes is, roughly, Paris - Orleans - Tours - Poitiers - Bordeaux wine area - San Sebastian - Bilbao. That's probably the most direct route and offers interesting stops. You could vary it by going Paris - Loire chateaux country - and then on south.
For a road trip in France, you'll want to get familiar with at least one of these road trip planning webistes: maps.google.com or viamichelin.com
Many have found GPS helpful on trips of this type.
Posted by
Los Angeles, CA, US
2 posts
Don't go without a GPS. We used the Garmin 275 and it was terrific. We just returned from 12 days in France and Italy and will never go witout it again. We love to have a car it was well worth price of the Garmin, espcially if you get lost, it will just "speak up and get you where you want to be".
Posted by
la frette sur seine
448 posts
Remind me to get back to you later..leaving from outside Paris tomorrow...I wanted to go to museums in Nice...husband need to see the Atlantic..Looks like the first stop is Arachon, thenBayonne and StJean-de-Luz. We have only a week so it will be Autoroute rather than cute en route...but maybe we'll see something worth writing home about. My planned side trip is Espelette, because i need some "French paprika".
Posted by
Northern California
118 posts
Hi Aimee,
I like Kent's route a lot. A couple of other options, just to mix things up:
Instead of Poitiers, or as a stop between Poitiers and Bordeaux, try La Rochelle. It's a quintessential French seaside town that often gets overlooked, 1.5 hours from Poitiers.
Bordeaux is a stately, grand old city and worth a visit, but as Kent suggests, the wine country surrounding the city is a better sight. Consider staying a few miles east in the adorable, if toursity, village of St. Emilion.
Let us know how it goes!