falynw

Trying to plan a 2 week vacation for my husband and I's 30th birthday. All the itineraries I've come up with have been far too ambitious so looking for suggestions! We have round trip flights to Paris CDG (direct flights bought with miles). Looking back I probably should have bought a flight into CDG and departing out of another city, but at this point I don't think changing those flights is an option. We will be arriving May 7 and departing May 21. We're traveling from the US so we'd like to see as much as we can without being too overbooked.

We mainly like to explore by eating/drinking our way through cities with some light sightseeing/activities mixed in (not the type to spend a whole day in museums). Paris is obviously a must so would start with a few days there and maybe one day trip to Versailles? Some options that I've looked at that intrigued me were; France: wine regions (we would love to go to a winery/vineyard), Strasbourg, French Riviera. Italy: Florence, Venice, Amalfi Coast (Positano). Perhaps Spain or Germany? We've been to Rome, Amsterdam, and the Greek Isles before so those are the only options off the table.

Have always wanted to see the Amalfi Coast but maybe the French Riviera would be a better fit in our itinerary? Also not sure if weather would be good in May for the coast? Would love to hear suggestions from those that have far more Europe travel experience than us

TDudette

Welcome, falynw, and Happy almost Anniversary. There are ample things in Paris to keep you busy. My opinion only but I'd make Italy a separate trip.

While in Paris, Hub and I took separate guided day tours to Bruges, Paris by Night with dinner in the Eiffel Tour, and Loire River Chateaux. On other separate visits we or I have hopped on the train for Versailles, Bayeux, and Chartres. The fast trains from Paris can take you further. We sandwiched a trip to Aix via the TGV ( Trip Report: A Provence Sandwich ) and took day trips from there.

For food, how about Lyon? There are wine tours from there also.

May the travel fates be with you!

november_moon

With 2 weeks and flights in and out of Paris, I would be inclined to stick just to France - that would cut down on travel time getting around in Europe and allow you to see more of France itself. If you want to include another country, then I would include Italy, Germany, OR Spain, but not try to add more than 1 additional country - otherwise you'll be on the move too much - visiting more places, but not really being able to see them. Since you mentioned specific places in Italy, it seems that it has piqued your interest more than the other countries, so go there if you do want to include a 2nd country in your plan.

So 2 weeks and 2 countries, you could do something like this:

May 7: Arrive in Paris
8: Paris
9: Paris
10: Paris - half day trip to Versailles
11: Travel to 2nd French location TBD (maybe Loire Valley for the wine and Chateaux)
12: 2nd French location TBD
13: Travel to Florence
14: Florence
15: Florence
16: Travel from Florence to Venice
17: Venice
18: Venice
19: Venice
20: Return to Paris
21: Depart Paris to home

If you do want to visit Italy (or a different country) do look into changing your flights to fly home from the 2nd country. We are flying on miles as well and I just made a change to our flights yesterday - it's actually very easy as long as there are tickets available. I ended up having to spend some additional miles since the "super saver" miles seats weren't available on the new flight that I wanted, but it was worth it to me to spend those miles to make the change so that I had a itinerary that worked better for us. In our case, we were planning to visit Germany as well and fly home from Frankfurt, but with the COVID restrictions and the various things we have to do for different countries, I decided to simplify our lives and skip Germany. So I changed our flights so that we are flying home from Paris.

progol

With 2 weeks, I would stick with France - there's plenty to see and do. I wouldn't discount changing the ticket - many airlines have no-fee changes on their flights, but if the the changed flight has a different rate, you'd still have to pay the difference. Nonetheless, it's worth looking into.

The other suggestions are wonderful - my personal favorite area is the Dordogne, followed by Provence. You could combine Provence with the French Riviera, perhaps starting in Paris for the first 4 nights and taking a train south to Provence or Nice. If you rent a car, you'd have even more choices.

I love Sarlat in the Dordogne; that region could easily be a week.

Or, Brittany/Normandy for a week and a week in Paris.

You can't go wrong. Just keep it manageable!

Sassafrass

May is so perfect for almost any place. France has so much to see and do, I would spend all the time there and see as much of France as possible.
Rather than stay twice in Paris, upon landing I would go straight away to one of the other destinations and work my way back to Paris, putting all the time there at the end.
You could do Versailles as a day trip from Paris, but one trip, we went straight to Versailles from the airport. We had lunch and explored the gardens in a leisurely way, dinner and a very early tour of Versailles the next morning, before bus crowds arrived. The town of Versailles has a beautiful market with incredible displays of food. It was a great way to relax after the flight, yet get in a major sight right away. Our favorite arrival day in Paris.
Another option on arrival would be a fast train directly to Avignon (for Provence) or Lyon or another place. The area around Marseille and Aix has a lot of Moroccan influence and great food!
Bruges, Ghent, Brussels would all be lovely in May.
Mont Saint Michel?
Watch for advice from StCirq, StuDudley and Kerouac. Many others will have great advice too, but Stu has designed many itineraries for France, StCirq lives in a rural area and has traveled a lot and Kerouac lives in Paris.

Sassafrass

South of France in April?

bilboburgler

Welcome to Fodors

I saw your thread last night and thought "oh no not another one". Many people look at Europe on a map and think that they can do multi-country tours in a short time and honestly, the issue is the map Projection. It just looks like a small place.

Unless you really are the sort of person who likes the idea of "it is Tuesday so it is Belgium" calm it down. One country the size of France would take more than 2 weeks to explore. Of course it depends on your skills with language, culture understanding etc but May is a great time to come and see say the Alsace, Champagne or Burgundy where spring will be flowering. If you really must visit other countries this trip would allow you to drop into Germany, Switzerland, Belgium easily.

If you want more heat for your holiday then head further south to the Rhone or even Bordeaux and south to the border with Spain.

I would advise use the French train system seat61.com gives great advice and if you need a car hire one locally as getting around Paris in a hire car is stressful, though the paid for motorways are a wonder.

Sassafrass

South of France in April?.

This thread has a lot of good advice and information, somehow the link just posts as the thread title. It works.

kathymaclennan7899

Congratulations in advance. You will love France. All the suggestions about sticking to one country are very good - relax, enjoy the moment and experience what France has to offer. For the heart of burgundy wine, Beaune is a short train ride - Gare de Lyon - Dijon - Beaune. Loire whites and the chateaux are amazing. Our personal favorite is TGV to Avignon and then stay there or L’isle sur la sorgue. Provence has amazing hill towns and wineries to discover. Wine tours pick you up downtown Avignon. You can take a half day cooking class with a Michelin chef. If you go north to Normandy you can stop at Giverny, Money’s garden. We are going back in June for a few weeks and cannot wait.
-Le Bon Vie Travels

TravelinArkansan

There is so much to see in France - - you've mentioned the south and Strasbourg but the north and northwest with Mt. St. Michel and beautiful seaside towns like Honfleur are great too.

If you want to do Italy too, I might do about four days in Paris as has been suggested, and perhaps train to Strasbourg for the remaining days of the first week. You can do a day trip somewhere in the Alsace to one of the beautiful villages there and by May you should have good weather for taking perfect photos. There are easy flights to Venice from Strasbourg, whereas the train is eight wasted hours. I'd fly to Venice, round trip train to Florence, then on your last day in Europe fly Venice to Paris.

AJPeabody

In the pre-Internet era without trip reports, Mrs. P and I did a few Paris to Paris loops that were quite satisfactory. One was a loop through the Loire valley that also included Chartres and Chantilly, another that headed through Burgundy to Lyon and back via Annecy. Some how one of the loops included Alsace also, it might have been a three week journey, I also cannot remember which trip got us to the Champagne region, but that was also quite nice. As long as your trip is a loop including Paris, you won't be caught wasting a day getting back to Paris for a flight home.

I could also propose a non-driving train only itinerary. For instance: Paris, Eurostar to London, return to Paris, or Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris. Both would use high speed trains. Both would be be more efficient if you could change your return flight departure point. Of course, getting tested on a multi-country trip during the plague years may not be wise, but one can dream.