Afternoon day trips from Paris

That's so exciting. Congratulations. We expect to hear much more about ALL of your adventures! Including ones having to do with making your Paris apartment "your own."

Bill,

I enjoyed your report and congratulations on your purchase!

I've been interested in doing half-day lessons; would you recommend the ones you took? Do you know if they offered different levels?

I'd also be interested to hear your impressions of the various places you visited on your out-of-Paris trips; Aix, Eze, Dijon, Besançon.

Sounds like you'll be spending a lot more time in France now; please continue to post!

Bill, it sounds like you had a really nice trip. How were your French classes? I take French lessons, so I would be very interested in knowing the method of teaching and how much you progressed if you could post that in the appropriate thread. I would love to hear a lot about your experience. I'm going to take lessons in French in France in 15 months, but hey, whose counting

Congratulations on purchasing an apartment! How exciting and how wonderful! That really happened quickly for you. Which arrondisement did you end up purchasing? Did the transaction go smoothly? I would love to know that I had my own apartment in Paris waiting for me...... you must be thrilled. Looking forward to hearing more from you about your experiences in France, especially now that you will be spending more time there in your own place.

I apologize since it has been months since I posted here. I returned to the US on May 1st and was immediately swamped at work after having taken on a new position. Anyway, just wanted everyone to know we did have a wonderful month in Paris last April. Since our French classes ran until 1PM (and usually we ran over a bit) we didn't do much in the way of out of town day trips, but we did see plenty of Paris in the afternoons and we also got in a few weekend trips away from town. While we did do some of the regular "touristy" things (Tour Eiffel, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees), some of the more memorable visits in Paris were more low key:
- Walking the length of the Viaduc des Arts and enjoying the garden on a really nice weather day then returning on the street level popping in and out of many of the galleries/studios under the viaduc
- Leaving class at 1PM, walking to Galleries Lafayette and making the mistake of thinking we would simply pop in the store for a bit to see what it was like. Many hours later (I think it was around 7PM) we finally emerged carrying multiple shopping bags of food from Lafayette Gourmet.
- Going on a walking tour with our class along the Canal St. Martin all the way to the Parc de la Vilette and the Cite des Sciences
- Walking different routes home from class (basically going from the area near Metro Cadet to the area near Metro Rambuteau), stopping in different bars/cafes/etc, and getting a feel for the many different neighborhoods.
- Wandering. Just walking and wandering, knowing we could always hop the Metro and be home quickly.

Our weekend trips included:
- Taking the train and visiting Honfleur and Deauville/Trouville. The weather was lousy but we had a really super time anyway and enjoyed some really great (and really rich with Norman cream) food.
- Visiting Nice over the long Easter weekend. We stayed in Nice 3 nights, took a day trip to Eze, took another day trip to Villefranche sur Mer and Monaco (won some money at the casino and lost it all at the bar on just 2 drinks. I guess we'll check the prices first next time!). On the way back to Paris, we stopped for the day in Aix en Provence.
- Left class early on a Friday and took the TGV to Dijon where we spent the afternoon and early evening. Left Dijon and spent the remainder of the weekend in the Besancon area visiting a friend of a friend (who spoke no English, so our French classes came in really handy).
- Our final Saturday in Paris, we took a day trip to the Monet gardens at Giverny. We lucked out with a day with really great weather.

There is one other bit of really big news from our trip. The last week we were in town we began looking at (and visiting) some of the apartment listings in immoblier offices to get a feel for what prices were like and to get a feel for the types of properties available. Our intent had been to do a little research so that we would be better informed in case we became really serious about buying in the future. Well the last Friday morning we were there, we saw a place we absolutely fell in love with and we made an offer. So several months later after the long drawn our process of buying property in France, we flew back to Paris to complete the sale and take posession of the apartment. We spent 2 frantic weeks around Labor Day preparing it to be a short term vacation rental and then we began renting it to visitors in September. We're excited now because at the end of February we are headed back over to actually spend some time in our own apartment!

Anyway, that's the update from this part of the world and I sincerely apologize for taking so long to be in touch.

Everyone please have a safe and Happy New Year!

Bill

Hi bboston - now that you're in Paris - we want to hear how it's going.
+ tell us about your day trips!

De rien et bon voyage ! Cordialement.

Thanks for the great suggestions everyone!

Elzevir, our apartment is at 78 Rue du Temple. BTW, I really like the virtual tour of the area and thanks for the book suggestion, too.

Marie07, the Rouen itinerary from Cap10Mike is perfect! Thanks!

Gracejoan, we'll definitely check out Vaux le Vicomte. I looked at the website and it looks like we'll be there too early in the season for the evening candle light viewing, but it still looks worth the visit.

Our flight from San Jose is tomorrow morning and I'm sure we'll be too excited to sleep tonight. We arrive in Paris on Saturday morning. Really looking forward to being there!

Regards,
Bill and Julie

I didn't see that anyone had mentioned Provins...you will enjoy. Also Vaux le Vicomte is definitely a must see. They have the evening candle light viewing, too. All the gaardens have candles..beautiful. Check on it for being available while you are there.
Enjoy your trip....

Bonsoir,

In case it's not too late, here is the itinerary Cap10Mike prepared for friends posting on BP forum...

http://bonjourparis.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=613

Cap10Mike May 12 2004, 07:08 PM Post #15

"DAY TRIP TO ROUEN AS PROPOSED TO OUR FRIEND BP-AL..." (Day Trip to Rouen)
A short tour of the City 14 Cap10Mike 875 14th July 2005 - 10:53 AM

Bon séjour dans notre belle France :-) Cordialement.

There is a good book :

An Hour from Paris (Paperback)
by Annabel Simms

that you might want to pick up. It is written by someone who wanted to take the train out to various places that you could explore in one day.

Where is your apartment on rue du Temple ? I know the area well ... if you want to take a virtual walk around

http://www.elzevir.net/ballade.htm

Bboston: take a picnic with you to school in the morning that you can eat on the train. It will cost less and be so much better. Ditto for eating on the train back.

There are sooooo many thangs to do in Paris. Je suis d'accord. Consider taking side trips two afternons a week.

bboston, do not rely on the German train schedule any more than on the Fremch one, as I do not think the time-table changes take place at the same time in all the European coutries, otherwise utmos kaos would exist. And I think they did not take so far this spring. Incidentally the French RR will be under "SNCF" if you want to find it. The eating part is one of the nice things with the bus tours. Many times they figure time for some fast eating, and stop at some eating and drinking Place(The passangers do not have to drive, so they can drink).Tey also are several small bistros on the rue d'Amsterdm, right across from the Gare St. Lazare.

BP Chuck

Wow! Thanks everyone for the speedy and helpful replies. These boards are a super resource!

BPAL, BP Chuck, we don't need to be back in Paris by dinner. Actually, as long as we can catch a train back to Paris, we don't mind having dinner somewhere else or fitting in some more sightseeing before heading back. As far as train schedules go, we found a great resource in the Deutche Bahn website: http://bahn.hafas.de/bin/query.exe/en We have used this in the past and it seems to be pretty thorough in terms of what all of the train options are. Also, the school where we will be is relatively close to Gare St. Lazare, so at least for some destinations, we can go directly from class to the station (and even leave class a bit early if needed for a particualr trip). Julie and I are also great at grabbing lunch on the run. Especially if it means we have more time to sightsee. For Rouen, however, I think we are most likely going to take a full day (that way we can fully appreciate Marie07's town), so we'll just go on a Saturday (or Sunday if there are not too many places closed).

Of course, we'll also be filling up our afternoons with plenty of things in Paris, itself. Our only 2 trips to Paris, we were there for just a few days and always found ourselves wanting to see much more. This time we are hoping to get beyond the surface and drill a little deeper. For instance, we've never had time before to take a Canal St. Martin cruise or to take some time lingering at Pere Lachaise cemetery.

We will be renting an apartment in the Marais on Rue du Temple, for the time we are in Paris. Our classes will be at a small school in the 9th arrondisment, "L'atelier 9" ( http://www.latelier9.com/ ). I have studied some French before but my wife will be an absolute beginner, so we'll be in different levels.

We're at the 3 week countdown to departure now and we're both so excited that there's little else we can focus on at the moment!

As Chuck points out, timing by rail can be a big problem as you'll be lucky to make a 2 PM train.Which means you'll be lucky to get to your spot by 3PM. Early evening is a bit unexplained. Does that mean getting back to dinner in Paris?

Bboston: your half days are not really half days as if your classes finish at 1 PM, (I presume) you will have some lunch, and/or will go back to your hotel to change, etc. before you go to the RR station. Than ther is the question of the time table of the trains. Remember that RR schedules change generally twice a year, once in fall and once in the spring. So before you make plans for the trip, you want to find out these details. An other solution may be to tak a look at the excursion tour buses brochures (you find many of them in the literature racks of the hotels (if you do not see them, ask for them, the hotels will be delighted to give or get you some (they get a commission). The hotel concierge will be glad to even make to reservations, and the buses often come and pick you up, and bring you back to the hotel or to within close walking diistance to the hotel. In this case you do not even have to tip the concierge, as the bus companies will take care of this. "Cityrama" (part of the Gray Line and "Paris Vision" may be one of the larger such companies.
A other thing, remember that you can take in one part of one of the Parisian museums in an afternoon.

BP Chuck

Welcome -- welcome!

There are so many places to go ....

Dijon - Tours.

you should DEFINITELY buy a "couples" RAIL EUROPE pass!

bboston,

Welcome to Bonjour Paris. What a wonderful opportunity you have; do you mind telling us who you'll be taking lessons from?

Chartres is about 60 miles from Paris, about an hour by train and worth the visit.

Do you have an apartment or will you be staying in a hotel? Have a wonderful time and please post a report when you return.

Bonjour,

It takes about one hour to go by train from Paris (Gare Saint-Lazare) to my town, Rouen ;-) Cap10Mike will tell you more about what one can do when not having much time to dedicate to its visit... IMHO, my town is worth a whole day at least to see and really discover it... Here is an interesting trip report made by American people who spent a day in Rouen :

http://www.slowtrav.com/tr/tripreport.asp?tripid=883&index=8

Cordialement.

My wife and I will be spending the entire month of April 2006 in Paris taking French classes. Our classes will be Mon-Fri, 9am-1pm. We are going to reserve the weekends for some longer trips (for example: Cote D'Azur, Provence, Dijon), but we are hoping that we can fit some shorter 1/2 day drips into some of our weekday afternoons. Does anyone have anygood suggestions? Are places like Rouen or Chartres too far to reasonably see much in an afternoon/early evening? Thanks in advance for any advice!