Help me refine my trip in FRANCE! Help me cut a day...

[bisous]

I will have 9 nights and 8 days in France coming up in April. I've got a great itinerary...for 9 days, lol! I need to shave down a day. Here's our plan so far:

Day 0: Night spend in Paris
Day 1: Day in Paris
Day 2: Day trip to Versaille
Day 3: Day in Paris
Day 4: Trip to Charters, then drive to Amboise. Stay overnight in Amboise
Day 5: Spend a full day in the Loire Valley--See Chenonceau and Chambord (and perhaps one more!) Stay overnight in Amboise
Day 6: Drive to St. Remy. Some touring, Stay in St. Remy
Day 7: Full day in Provence, Stay in St. Remy
Day 8: Ride the train to the Italian border, then backtrack (bus or train) on various sites on the Cote
Day 9: Full Day in Nice

SO. I need to cut one day!

The easiest and neatest way to cut a day would be to cut the trip to the Loire. I'm not excited about that, mostly because although this will be DH's first trip to France, I've been everywhere EXCEPT the Loire before, though to be fair, I'm also visiting Southern Germany and Switzerland for the first time so there will be some novelty on the trip.

Another option is to cut a day in Paris? Maybe cut one of the side trips? Or make Versailles a shorter trip and put more Paris stuff on that day?

A final option is to cut to less than a full day in Provence. I'm partly visiting because I lived in one of the small cities there. While I do love it, I love it more in the Summer than in late April. It is likely that nearly the whole city will be shut down in the early evening. So maybe cut that trip by a half a day and a nights stay and maybe cut down slightly on time spent on the Cote?

Would love your thoughts! Should I cut the Loire? Paris? Provence? Any other "hacks" you can see that would allow all the stuffs, lol?

[Philly Mom]

I would drop a day in Paris. My parents love Paris and were just there. They did not enjoy it this trip. At all. I LOVE the Loire valley. I like those two chateaus more than Versailles by a lot. I didn’t actually love Versailles but I love everything about Chambord and Chenonceau.


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[bisous]

I would drop a day in Paris. My parents love Paris and were just there. They did not enjoy it this trip. At all. I LOVE the Loire valley. I like those two chateaus more than Versailles by a lot. I didn’t actually love Versailles but I love everything about Chambord and Chenonceau.


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How interesting! What made Paris different this time around? I confess I'm most excited about the Loire valley and I'm pretty loathe to give it up. When I visited Versailles before we didn't want to bother with the line to see the chateau itself so we just toured the gardens. It was a LOVELY day. I would probably be satisfied with that! Though I do wonder if it makes a difference that last time I was there was in July and not in April. I'm having a hard time imagining France in the off-season. With combos of less daylight and stuff just closing down earlier I think we'll get less touring in any of our locations that we might get later in the season!

[Philly Mom]

France in April is wonderful. Great time of year.


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[Philly Mom]

And should have added that Paris felt crowded with tourists. They felt like their favorite restaurants were bad. When they walked around shops, they were ignored. It was just the whole feeling. And they are true Paris lovers. Like have probably have gone 10 times at least.


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[hillview]

I would skip the train ride to Italy personally. I LOVE paris and just sitting in a cafe/walking around. YMMV

[SnuggleBuggles]

I’m sure you could spend infinite amount of time in Paris and have a wonderful time. Or you could just see Paris in a day and be happy (like we were with our 1.5 days/2 nights). From past posts you really just want to see Paris. I would cut a day there. Just be efficient with your time. If you want to go into the Eiffel Tower, note how far in advance you need to book that. I can’t remember. And I highly recommend the Louvre highlight tour- see the most famous pieces in 2 hours. That’s another to book ahead of time.


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[bisous]

I would skip the train ride to Italy personally. I LOVE paris and just sitting in a cafe/walking around. YMMV

The train ride is only an hour past Nice which is our destination. I was hoping to be able to hop on and off the train to visit Eze, St. Jean Cap Ferrat, Villefranche sur Mer and other little villages as we made our way into Nice. Maybe Monaco too? Actually the last time I did that was in 1998 so a world away and maybe that's no longer possible. I should definitely investigate! But maybe that can be part of our full day on the Riviera?

The easiest is simply to drop a day in Paris. I think I could live with that. Or with less time at Versailles. Or drop the trip to Chartres...I guess I'm really grateful that the answer is not to drop the stop off in the Loire. I'm really excited about that! I can lay out all the things we'll miss if we make other changes but so long as we retain that I think I'm ok!

[Liziz]

Give up a day in Paris. I have been to Paris as part of a bigger trip. We only had 1 full day in the city. While we definitely didn't get to do everything, it was a great day and I didn't feel like I "missed out" because we weren't there longer. Would I love to spend more time there at some point in the future? Of course! But I don't regret keeping it short on our last trip (where we would have had to give up other side trips to have more time). I suggest you consider the few top things you'd like to see in Paris, make sure to book tickets to those if needed, and just consider it a Paris highlights stop on a larger France trip!

Another option (or one to consider in combination?) would be to shorten the Versailles portion (or skip?). I do not have personal experience here, but my DH did a Paris trip in younger life (before we met) and did not enjoy the Versailles part of his trip....enough to lobby that we skip in on our trip years later (not that he was against going or said it was horrible or anything, just didn't feel it was worth the time when weighed against other France destinations). I wish I had more details on why he felt this way -- I can't remember anymore! I think part of it was that he felt like he didn't actually spend enough time there to justify the travel time involved in getting to/from....but again, YMMV + this was YEARS ago!

[bisous]

I think Paris is the easiest place to cut and good call on being able to potentially eliminate Versailles--we're still staying in Paris overnight which means that we still have two full days there, not counting sleeping overnight and the prior evening, potentially morning of the day that we leave!