Paris to Provence and Back: Advice Sought

We will be spending close to a week in Paris early October and plan to take a leisurely trip by train and car for an additional 9 or 10 days.

Thoughts are to travel to Provence by train. Then we would work our way back to Paris by the tenth day. Possible stops would include Burgundy, Alsace and or Champagne.

Any advice relative to best train routes, places to rent cars, comfortable lodging and decent regional food would be appreciated. We like to maintain some flexibility and don’t require four star hotels or three star restaurants.

if you drive back to paris from provence and stop at all the places you mention, i think you’ll end up spending too much time in the car.

Most travel will be by train with cars where necessary. Just a rough sketch so far. A couple nights in Provence, then will decide what towns to visit on the way north.

Doing this in a couple of weeks.

Train from Paris to Avignon on the TGV is less than 2 hours. Rent a car @ Avignon explore the area. You can then take the train from Avignon to Dijon, I think it’s roughly 3.5 hours. Rent a car explore. Then take the slightly over hour train ride back to Paris.

+1. Just did this in July. Pretty easy. Hertz is just outside the doors of TGV Avignon.

This. Use trains to go from city to city, then rent cars to explore local areas. Trains are easy and on-time (usually) and clean (also, usually).

I loved Lac d’Annecy. Took a nice boat tour and had the best mussels of my life at some restaurant with an awesome view. I’ll never remember the name of it though.
If you go the other direction, Minerve, Carcassonne, and foe gras territory is run fun as well.

And, if young Americans happen to be on board , with some real courage, safe, too, albeit a little scary.

Personally, I’d rent a car when leaving Paris and keep using it to the end of the trip. You’ll get a better feel for the areas, have more flexibility. The area you’re talking about exploring is not all that vast.

Paris —> provence —> Dijon ----> Paris is over 1,425km. Sounds pretty vast to me.

Over “9 or 10 days”, I don’t think that’s “vast”…though it would be a long one-day trip. And, most of it would be driving, not exploring.

I’ve done it several times…maybe even more…Paris to Montpellier and back up to Paris, with stops in the Rhone and Dijon over a week’s period. I’ve also done the train once and…rented a car in two places…and found it a hassle.

And, all of these trips, were pre-GPS…with the GPS it has to be a lot easier.

Just the kind of dialog we were looking to hear. Our extended time gives us more flexibility. We can also change as we go along.

We did some train connections and some driving between Venice and Rome last year with stops in Florence and three locations in Tuscany.

Doing it all by car has benefits, of course, including flexibility and the chance to get lost in the countryside and discover something new. That said, driving in Europe is very expensive: for example, toll highways are gorgeous in France, well-maintained, but you pay for it through the nose; gas is extremely expensive, especially if you’re used to the lower US prices.

So you really need to balance what you want and what you’re able to do.

Once you are in Provence, go to Bandol and visit Chateau Pradeaux among others.

I prefer one way by car and the return by train- prefer leaving Paris by car vs. the other way;trickier to return in the city limits.

That used to be true, I can remember it taking me over an hour to drive out of Paris back in the 90s, getting lost too many times. But now with electronic navigation and driving directions, it’s no big deal.

On my honeymoon, in 1983, I came close to divorce when driving into Paris from Alsace and Burgundy and Champagne (not sure the order of those visits, but I think Burgundy was first). My wife had lived in Paris after college for several years…and, because she was/is fluent in the language, I made too many assumptions about her ability to navigate around (which she’s always been poor at in English, I learned). We revisited those issues many times thereafter, too…both in Paris and Burgundy and other regions of France.

If only the GPS had been invented by then…maybe she wouldn’t have so many bad memories of our trips.

I’d drive for sure if it was me, ymmv though! Depending on your plans train there drive back may make sense.

Your kids were scarred by the France trips and won’t drink wine. Your wife has “so many bad memories of our trips.” Didn’t you realize…vacation and travel are supposed to be fun? neener

Nancy, we’ve taken both approaches, and have enjoyed both.

I’ve done it with nav,I still had to meny override the GPS when returning the car to Place Madeline. Even with GPS, it’s not easy to return a car within the city center if you are not familiar with Parois. Pretty surprised you think it’s easy to return; (departing isMUCH easier).