Versailles & Chateau de Chenonceau

Too rushed. Many people spend nearly a full day at Versailles - half day at least. Chenonceau will be a couple hours not including travel time. Plus there are other chateaus nearby that make more sense to drive too rather than drive to Versailles.

I'm sorry I forgot to mention that when we leave Paris, we're on a road trip to the Normandy coast via the Loire Valley so staying in Tours (which is only a short drive from Chenonceau) is our goal for that night. Also this is mid May 2011. Is this still doable? Som

too much. this is what happened to me so you can see how my trip played out and what you might experience: Left hotel at 8am. Got breakfast and was at train station at 9am to pick up car. spent one hour looking all over train station for car rental office. Found it. Drove to Versailles relatively easily. Waited in line for one hour for tickets (which could have been avoided if I had remembered to get addtional days on my Paris museum pass!). Toured for about 4 hours and could have been longer but we had to get on the road. Got back in the car and tried to drive out of Versailles but got lost. After about an hour and half we finally found our road out of town and were on our way. Easy drive to Amboise. Arrived at our hotel well into the evening with just enough time to get a late supper and get to bed. So that whole day started at 8am and probably ended at 9pm. The next day we toured Chenonceau, the Amboise castle and Leonardo DaVinci's home and that was another full day.

As Amy's story of what happened to them has mentioned (above post), figure that what you want to do will take you significantly more time than you think it will, based on the time to do the same thing in N. America. The thing you really want to avoid is getting to your destination lodging so late that you're locked out and on the street with your luggage; this has been known to happen with family run/small lodging in Europe that doesn't have 24-hr reception (they will often but not always advise you of this when you book the room). This has happened to the unwary and spouses/travel partners have been known to be quite unimpressed with this outcome.

We did a similar trip to what you have planned but we took one of our 3 days out of Paris to visit Versailles by public transportation. It is only about 30 minutes on the train from Paris. Actually we still got back to Paris late afternoon to do a cruise down the Seine and enjoyed strolling the streets of Paris after that. Being there in May it did not get dark until around 10 p.m. so we had some long days in terms of daylight. The next day we picked up a car out of Paris and drove to Honfleur where we started on our Normandy, Loire and Dordogne phase of the trip. I agree with the others that you would be too rushed trying it the way you have it planned. Versailles was worth taking part of our Paris time to visit it. Be sure to take your GPS as well as a good map.

Jean, if you are thinking about spending the night in Chenonceaux I can highly recommend Hotel La Roseraie. It is very close to Chenonceau (a few minutes walk) and Laurent and Sophie were very gracious hosts and if you can reserve a dinner in their limited seating restaurant be sure to do so. You will be hard pressed to find a better meal anywhere. They also provide free parking.

Make sure you plan to spend time in the gardens at Versailles. The queen's hamlet was our favorite part! Definitely get a GPS. We drove from Paris to Honfleur our 1st day. We stopped at Giverny, the ruins of Chateaux Gaillard, Rouen. We got lost everywhere we went! We used a Michelin map of France and driving instructions printed at via michelin. Didn't arrive at our B&B until 10:30. Thought we were locked out, but our host was very gracious. Next day did Bayeux and D Day beaches, arrived at Mont St Michel so late that we only saw the lights surrounded with darkness. Arrived in St. Malo at 10:30, but was able to call ahead and get the code to get in or we would have spent the night in our car. Have fun!