October 2025 Best of Eastern France

Bumping this post to see if there are any others that frequent the forums that are also on this tour.

We took this tour earlier this year and loved it. You will have a great time, especially if you like lots of good French wine. For some reason, very few RS tour members frequent this Forum, so you will likely not get a response from a fellow traveler. But I suggest that you post the exact starting date of your tour rather than “early October”. Have fun!

Simpgolf, thanks for the feedback. I assumed that this post would be like several others posted in that the majority of the tour guests do not visit the forum-we did not ourselves until we took our first (and only) Rick Steves tour to Greece, back in 2014. Since then it has been one of my go-to resources for trip planning and general information gathering for our European trips.

I've read quite a few positive comments about this tour, which is always nice to see when taking a new tour or visiting a new area, so thank you for your feedback. Can you tell me the name of your guide? The guide listed for our tour is Chris Coleman, who I believe has been with the Rick Steves org for quite a while and has led this specific tour several times (also with a lot of positive comments), so I think we will be in good hands for our exploration of eastern France. With regard to wine, I am a huge fan of the Rhone valley products, courtesy of Costco-they sell a superb Kirkland branded Chateauneuf-de-Pape and a very inexpensive Cotes du Rhone Villages red, both of which always find their way into my wine fridge for the holidays (and any other time they are on sale!).

Chris Coleman was our tour guide for this trip in 2022. She was really excellent. She is an American who has studied and lived in France, and that depth of knowledge about the country and also her tour members' perspectives was really helpful. She is fun, energetic, a clear communicator, no nonsense about what the plans are and what tour members were responsible for. I'd travel anywhere with her.

Our guide was Julie, an American who married a French man and lived in France for 20 years. This was our 11th RS tour and included the most and best wine of them all. The pace and activity level is a little slower than most RS tours, but was a welcome relaxing trip. Only bad weather was at Mount Blanc which never appeared due to rain and clouds.

Thank you all for the feedback-very helpful! FYI, the official dates for the tour are October 5-18, but we added on a few days in Lyon at the start and a few more in Aix-en-Provence at the end (also the last stop of the tour). We've been to Paris several times but never to Lyon, which given its culinary delights and history, seemed like a good companion to the Eastern France itinerary. We debated whether or not to relocate to another town or city in Provence or the Cote d'Azur but ultimately decided to extend our stay in Aix-it does not have as many "celebrity" sights as its neighbors Arles or Avignon, but it seems like a pleasant and attractive town to wind down from the tour. It is also well connected to the Marseilles airport (25-30 minutes by taxi), our departure point at the end of our trip. Cassis was another option (about an hour from the airport), but at that point we realized that we probably needed to plan a future trip to Provence and the Cote d'Azur to give ourselves more time in the region than we had at the end of the tour. The Aix tourism office offers a long list of interesting day tours from Aix, so we will likely do one or more of those if we get bored with chilling out in Aix.

I took this tour pre-Covid and Chris Coleman was our guide - she was excellent. This was one of my favorite tours of all that I've taken. Wonderful opportunities to learn about and taste wine, amazing sights, picturesque towns, good food. You will be there in a nice time of year too - not too hot. Enjoy it!!!

We had Chris in 2022 when Covid-19 was still a concern, but we all made it to the finish line! Like us, she's from Minnesota, so that was a fun connection. She was a great guide, and I loved her chambray shirt look so much that I adopted it.

Plumeria54, I agree that October is a wonderful time for the trip, cooler weather, possibly fewer visitors (athough "shoulder season" keeps extending more and more into the winter months).

Mnannie, sounds like I need to invest in a chambray shirt-I haven't had one of those for quite a while, but I do remember mine being very comfortable (it was well broken in). BTW, I spent a glorious week hiking and boating on Isle Royale a few years ago, and would love to return, although I might take the seaplane next time-our ferry rides (between Grand Portage and Rock Harbor) were quite eventful, with 15-20 foot waves on the outbound trip, and a tooth crown that came loose on the return trip (which is another story).

I am currently on this tour! :) This is my 5th RS tour, and we are about halfway through, enroute to Chamonix. This tour has a strong emphasis on wine (you will note there are four scheduled group wine tastings, in addition to whatever you decide for yourself). We are not wine enthusiasts and signed up for other reasons…the beautiful scenery, the small personal experiences you have when on a new journey, that you could never plan. Colmar was completely different visually from Reims, and Beaune was completely different from Colmar. We’ve had eight straight days of rain and fog, albeit some brilliant sunny moments. You too will have a completely different tour experience, as your weather will be unique, your tour group members different, and your own perceptions, too. It’s very green and lush so far, but sliding into autumn. Dress in layers! Have a café Viennois with chantilly cream. Definitely eat the strawberries! Embrace the surprises you’ll encounter. Chris will take good care of you all.

Karin, thank you so much for your "real time" trip report! Sorry to hear you have had so much rain and fog, but I suspect that is common for that area of France in shoulder seasons. We spent 3 weeks in Switzerland this past May, so we plan to pack similarly for this trip, ie, layers and rain gear. The tour does not appear to have as much hiking as our May trip, which given the rain is probably a good thing (muddy trails are not my idea of a fun time in the outdoors!). We are looking forward to the scenery as well, which, in addition to the history of the region, were our primary motivators for taking this trip. We like wine and look forward to participating in the tastings, but I am glad someone else will be driving after those tastings! A cafe Viennois sounds wonderful (although I had to look it up!)-we are also big coffee "tasters" and always enjoy the European alternatives to our cup (or cups) of Joe we have each morning.

Thanks again for the feedback, and enjoy the conclusion of your tour. Do you plan to spend time in Provence after the tour?

We are only staying one extra night in Provence to visit the Saturday markets. Then we will start our long journey home. As our tour guide Chris said, travelling north to south in eastern France is like visiting many small countries! Our minds are very full. We’ll go home with many great memories. Bon Voyage to you!

Kristin, that is an interesting perspective on the tour, ie, that it is moe like visiting multiple countries. Have a great flight home, and thanks so much for your feedback.

We are now in Reims, but still learning how to pronounce the city name (our first attempts were way off base before we resorted to Google Translate and AI). It is raining all day today but is forecast to clear up tomorrow when we meet the rest of the tour group, so we plan to cocoon in our hotel room today to recover from yestreday’s travel chaos (2 flight cancellations in. Row, but we still somehow made it!) and bone up on our French.