Nailing down details for my Bordeaux,Dordogne,Carcassone,Paris trip

Do you drive in Fresno?

Unless you and your husband have real issues with driving, I encourage you to rent a car for at least part of this trip. This region is generally not well-served by rail.

Drive, it's a beautiful area, and, take the canoe trip down the river--it's like a miniature Grand Canyon. We did it with tow preteens on a family trip and had a ball.
Check the Chambres-hotes-france.org site for places to stay, which we use when in France. Also, don't miss Albi.

I'm an experienced canoeist, but my husband isn't. We rented and paddled on the Dordogne with no trouble. I don't know if it's always true, but the river was quite shallow. The company we rented from gave us a pickup time and place, and we had no problem making it on time. I suggest that you contact Tourist Information in a town where you might stay and ask about canoe rentals. If you get the websites of some companies, they may address your questions. Re driving: don't drive in Bordeaux or Paris, but the rest of the places involve country driving. Probably easier than Fresno. Most of the small towns have well-signposted parking areas.

Driving in Bordeaux is a piece of cake (so is Paris for that matter), it's the parking that's a pain in the neck.

My idea would be a train from Paris to Bordeax. Pick up a car when leaving, and drive all the way to Carcassonne. The only hard part is picking a spot to cross the Gironde Estuary. I'd probably spring for a gps since most of the places to see along the way are off the freeways by a good bit. (If a droid is what I think it is, the data charges might well exceed the cost of a new gps with european maps.)

I've fiddeled with canoes and kayaks most of my life, not done it there, but watched others -- it's rather docile.

I don't care for wine, but was hornswageled into taking my wife and one of her pals on a three-week tour of France focusing on the stuff. Managed to pull it off without complaints, but in my mind, once you've seen one vinyard or one wine factory.....
St Emillion, however, is only rivaled by Beaune in the amount of shops that sell the stuff. I'd go there and be done with it, no sense in paying a talking head to tell you what barrels and vines are and how climate and soil affect the stuff.

Over the years I've probably spent six months in the Lot/Dordogne/Perigord area. My suggestion would be to cough up the bucks for a Michelin Green Guide of France then connect the dots of what you want to see and plan your route accordingly.

You won't need a lot of time in Carcassonne, last half of the afternoon, dinner inside the walls, and another short walk and you're done.

The canoe trip is easy. We rented a canoe from Copeyre Canoe ( In 2009 there was 10% discount with Rick's book. I guess it would be good for 2010). We did the two-hour trip from Vitrac to Beynac which is also mentioned in Rick's book. It worked out well for us since we were staying in Beynac. Copeyre will pick you up at the canoe turn-in ramp in Beynac and transport you to the starting point in Vitrac. You will not have any problems driving there and for that area a car would be your best option. I would take a gps.

I stayed at the Hotel Tour L'Intendance in Bordeaux and liked it very much. Good location, staff, room, breakfast. La Tupina is a well known, excellent restaurant.