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Partial Tentative Itinerary:

Posted by (Alabama, USA) on

Seeking evaluations & suggestions! My wife & I & teen grandson are planning 23-day overview driving tour of France with a few days in edge of adjacent countries. Goal is an introduction & some highlights of covered area. Especially enjoy roadside scenery, mountains, rural areas, local(use Rick's "Back Door") cultures, short walks & history.

Day 1, Tues Apr 21, Frankfurt Germany airport to Bacharach; Day 2 on to Metz, Fr; tentative stops were in a post reviewed Apr 12.

DAY 3, 250 miles: Visit a couple Metz-area ancestral villages; after lunch, the Joan of Arc birthplace site(s) in Domremy-la-Pucelle; take mainly N4 to suburban B&B E-side of Paris.

DAY 4, Fri: RER train into Paris to use hop on/off bus tour. "Must-See's" are Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe & Notre Dame Cathedral. Back to same B&B.

DAY 5, Sat, 200 miles: Drive around Paris to Palace of Versailles. In P.M. on to ancestral homesite near LeMans. Then bypass Tours to find B&B in Loire Valley before Blois.

I plan to post more of Tentative Itinerary later today.

We have no lodging reservations yet. We usually either phone ahead that given day to a B&B such as Rick lists or we just watch for roadside B&B signs in the evening & check them out. The latter doesnt work well in non-tourist areas. Please let us know when we plan such!

Again your comments, suggestions & critiques are not only welcomed but requested! They will help us decide what to add/subtract/substitute. We realize that we will not have time for all the places on our tentative itinerary. It is already being revised in our minds as result of first post. Those likely revisions are not shown here-we want to get feedback on entire trip before making 'final' decisions. I realize it would be ideal to post entire tentative itinerary right now, preferably in one post, but I can't get it done. Thank You!

Posted by
12040 posts

A few comments- Day 4 looks reasonable. If you use public transport efficiently, you may even have time to visit one of the smaller museums (don't count on fitting in the Louvre, Orsay or Pompidou, though).

Day 5 looks a little too ambitious, though.

Posted by
10344 posts

I'm glad to see Tom's review of this itinerary. I hope it's just my imagination but I seem to notice that even some of our regular repliers kind of hold back a little on answering itinerary questions. I hope I'm not permanently stuck with the position of itinerary guy--if I am it's my own fault, but I'm getting burned out reviewing itineraries and would like to see others jump in and give their opinions. I won't second guess, as long as we don't revert back to the old unhelpful practice of basically saying: "We'll support any crazy idea you can come up, sounds good to us, and we're sure it will be awonderful trip"--not when it's obvious a first timer needs to be gently told that their itinerary is not feasible because of travel times between destinations. Those kind of itineraries aren't being posted as often as before, we seem to be having some success spreading the word that travel times have to be considered before your itinerary is finalized.

Posted by
9207 posts

If I may jump in here. I don't know what kind of shape you are in, but could I recommend either the Fat Bike tour of Paris or one of the many good walking tours? You will get soooo much more out of the city than doing the bus thing. The bike tours especially come highly recommended and seem to be a lot of fun. If you want your grandson to have a memorable trip, this might do it.

I think you are rather rushed. You land in Frankfurt after a transatlantic flight and then you are off and running. Can't tell when you will have a car and when not. I see two days where you are planning on spending around 4 hours each in a car? I think if you took a train, your travel time would be less as the trains go considerably faster than your car.

So, you are going to be here next Tuesday? There are a lot of spring festivals, etc. going on in Germany and along the Rhein and I imagine in France too. You might check some of the tourist boards of the towns you are planning on visiting to see if anything is going on.

Posted by
3262 posts

Hi Jerry,
Since you have 23 days would you consider slowing down and spending more time in Paris--perhaps as many as 5 days? There is so much to see and it would give you time to relax, see things at a slower pace and settle in.

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