I promised my teenager that if she maintained good grades, the reward would be a week in Paris. So April it is (the 6th through the 14th). I haven%26#39;t been since I was a student in the 70%26#39;s (but I did spend 4 months there). We have the plane tickets (amex points !) and the apartment near Rue Mouffetard, and a very loose itinerary for most of the week, covering the musts (tour eiffel, louvre, orsay, notre dame, champs elysee). My question is, we are considering a day trip to Loire Valley, taking the TGV to Tours and then renting a car to go chateau hopping, and returing to Paris in the evening. I was considering doing this on Monday? Any thoughts and recommendations?
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Hello,
I think it could be a good idea to go to the Loire valley by train, and then renting a car. Will you want to do a one day trip? or more? Because there is many things (chateaux, wine caves,....)to visit!
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This would be a VERY long day. Personally, I believe the Loire requires an over night stay to really appreciate it and would recommend visiting one or two of the chateau near Paris this time around.
Chantilly is breathtaking with a better art collection than anything in the Loire and you can get there by train.
Vaux le Vicomte is also beautiful and is the real deal, as in an aristocratic family still calls this home. There is a display on the Fables de La Fontaine and every April they have an exhibit on chocolate and chocolate molds.
To make it even more exciting: the famous chef Vatel worked at Vaux before being hired by the Prince de Conde to work at Chantilly, where he invented whipped cream (called Chantilly in French) You could rent the movie Vatel to enjoy with your daughter prior to your visit and then visit the two chateaux while in Paris.
This is probably best done in two half days... Chantilly by train, Vaux by car.
Fountainbleau is another impressive local chateau that you can reach by train.
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The more and more I read this site, the more and more I realize that we are just *not* going to be able to see everything in eight days. The one thing I did promise myself is that we are not going to be whirlwind tourists, racing through places just to say we were there. Maybe we spend one day in Loire Valley, and see maybe one or two chateaux, but see a good bit of the countryside. Since it will be a long day, any thoughts about making this our next-to-last day in Paris, so we%26#39;ll be tired whae we fly home?
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Heartlesspwg,
I have just come from Paris with my 13-yr-old son and he enjoyed very much an Expo about Star Wars at La Vilette. It has got all the suff - real size spaceships, the costume used in the saga, films, the make-off and so. If she/he is a fan, according to my son it is well worth visiting.
As they say %26quot;may the force be with you%26quot;
Have a nice trip!
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Hello Heartlesspwg!
We did the Loire Valley our last day in France...it was to rest from the pace we kept in Paris. In the Loire we had a guided tour and were pampered all day long...this was much needed.
Still I felt sad that we did not finish our stay in the city. If I did it again I would break up the time in Paris with the Loire tour to rest a bit then hit the city again before I left.
Gail
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Another way of looking at it .
I took my 14 yr old son to Europe August on my own. I booked the hotel online, the Eurostar online, got us to Versaille on our own, and generally did it all on my own. Very fun, but, I always felt that I was working a bit, no hubby to confer with, and it was all up to me how well everything went.
I decided to take a Cityrama tour to the Loire Chateau after about a week.
It was a very relaxing day for me, for finally I was %26quot; off%26quot; , I didn%26#39;t have to interpet for my son, I didn%26#39;t have to pay attention to where we were going or worry about getting lost. It was a great trip and I recommend it as a BREAK from being your daughters tour guide!
Consider it a day off for you! It is nice to let someone else be in charge, if only for the one day.
The tour was very good, and we waited in NO line ups!
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This strikes a chord...I have planned this trip pretty much self-service; hubby is staying home as his idea of a vacation involves no sightseeing, and he speaks no rench whatsoever; and although my daughter is fairly fluent (studying french since kindergarten), the idea of a %26quot;day off%26quot; is attractive. I%26#39;ve been looking over the Paris Connection day-tour for 3 chateaux (Chambord, Chenonceaux, and Amboise). And then I waver and think catching the TGV and renting a car in Tours can%26#39;t be that stressful. (At least the french drive on the right side of the road !)
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Trip report -- I%26#39;m doing these in bits and pieces. We spent a wonderful 8 days in Paris last week, and now that the laundry is caught up, and I%26#39;ve somewhat unshoveled my desk at work...
We did do the one-day trip to the Loire valley, on a Monday. Booked the tickets on the TGV from Montparnasse to St. Pierre des Corps on the SNCF website about 2 weeks before we left; prepaid, for pick-up in france. By doing it this way, rather than through the raileurope (usa) site, we saved nearly 20 euros per ticket. No problem picking the tickets up at the station, though you do need to go to the ticket window rather than the kiosk, because our american credit cards do not have the little chip in them. (Sidebar -- I did however buy carnets from the metro ticket machines with my USA Visa at the Montparnasse station, so some do work).
We discovered how friendly the French are when I foolishly put my ticket into the %26quot;exchange%26quot; kiosk instead of the very bright yellow %26quot;validation%26quot; machine. (Duh moment). My daughter was starting to freak out; we have 10 minutes until the train is to leave, and one ticket has gone AWOL. After a few moments of trying to press the %26quot;acceuil%26quot; button, I asked a one of a group of young men near us if any of them could help us. He came over and tried the same buttons I did, with no success; he called over another companion, who then went to get someone %26quot;official%26quot;, who opened up the machine, and extracted our jammed ticket with a smile. The entire incident took about 3 minutes to resolve.
We did end up renting the car at the train station in St. Pierre des Corps, and did our unstructured chateau hopping. A few discoveries -- There is significantly less english spoken the further you get away from Paris. (like none in some areas) I figured this was a tourist area,but maybe we were that far off of the beaten path. You should mappy your planned route *before* you get to the car rental counter; they did not have any local maps, but they gave me a really nice road map for all of France. Luckily, the sun was peeking out of the clouds, we headed east, and found a sign for Chenonceau. The road signs were all very well marked, and we happily drove around the french countryside in our periwinkle purple diesel citroen, only getting a little lost. (OK, a few times it was a bit like Thelma %26amp; Louise in France). We toured Chenonceau and Amboise in depth, and also visited Clos Luce. We enjoyed ourselves so much more than if we were part of a large tour group. We visited Chenonceau in the morning, drove to Amboise, lunched, and then toured the Amboise chateau, followed by Clos Luce. There are many nice and reasonable places to eat in Amboise, away from the tour bus favorites. Leaving Amboise, we got lost twice, and did a little inadvertant sight-seeing in Tours before getting back to the train station, but we made our return train to Paris in plenty of time.
I would definitely do this day-trip again, but I was glad my french was pretty good so I could ask for directions (and understand the answers !) when we got lost.
If I had been a lttle more organized, we may have been able to squeeze in a visit to Chambord, but now we have areason to go back
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