Going to France, need some help!

Lucky! Yes, this thread has good info. What area are you staying in?

I had a friend who took the train from Paris to Epernay and did the avenues of Champagne. They loved it. You can visit Chateau Perrier (easy walk from the train station).

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My brother has a 4 bedroom apartment in the 16th arrondissement, near the Seine. That will be our home base. We’re just beginning to plan the trip.

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Since you are gifting (I think) this trip to your kids/partners might you ask them to cover the cost of their tour IF they want to go on it? Or have you mentioned the tour to them to be sure it’s something they are interested in? I was just thinking they might be happy to foot the bill for that special event OR take a day to do something on their own that day while you and your H do the tour???

The last time we were in Reims/Epernay we did tours at a couple of champagne houses and then lunch and further tasting(s) at a champagne bar. Trains to/from make it pretty easy.

The expense of some of the wine tours quite honestly kept us from signing up with one during our April trip around France. €500++ each + expected tips at the end of the day was more than we wanted to spend. Instead we arranged visits at places in each town we visited.

The wine subreddit has a number of threads on visiting the champagne region as well as other wine regions in France and elsewhere. It helped us figure out where we wanted (and didn’t want) to visit.

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Sometimes you can arrange a private group tour for less than cost of many single tour group tickets. Good luck!

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We went to Riems in 2023. We took the 1028 TGV to Reims from Paris. Walked to the surrender museum. Had an epic lunch at Le Crypto sitting outside. Checked out the cathedral. Took an uber to Mumms and had Champagne tour in English. I would recommend all of this. However, several companies have champagne tours in English and some are supposed to be spectacular so check around early and book your favorite.

After the tour, we took TGV back to Paris.

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Wow! Such great info. I’ll check into that, never really have done the Reddit thing.

I like this idea. Are you able to recall the English tour you took?

We drove from Paris to Reims. S had booked us a tour at Moet and Chandon - a great tour and then we walked around the town and got lunch before driving back. This was on a day stop over in Paris - if not, we would have stayed in the area longer. Loved it! One thing to caution though - they have speed cameras everywhere it seems like. H got a ticket after we got back home!

I just booked our flights. Now I really need to get serious about planning. :wink:

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When my wife and I visited France in 2019, we used Get Your Guide, here: https://www.getyourguide.com/destinations/, for our stay in Paris. We had a very nice guided tour through GYG of the Musee D’Orsay with lunch in the museum’s restaurant included (I don’t think this option is available now, but the restaurant was quite good); we also did a guided tour of the Louvre (and if you do a tour of the Louvre, do it early in the morning so that you can stay in the museum and see all the exhibits that you had to skip during the guided tour).

The guides that we had through Get Your Guides in Paris were very conversant in English, and very knowledgeable about the museums where they led the tours.

I see that Get Your Guide also has tours of Reims (although we did not make it to the Champagne region when we were in France). But GYG might be worth looking at as an option.

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Have you ever been? I recommend Rick Steve’s France travel book.

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I’ve never been. We love exploring cities, and aren’t huge fans of museums, so I’m sure we’ll venture off the beaten path.

I’m not much of one either. The great thing is there is so much to do, you’ll have no problems.

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Lovely area to stay, @GKUnion. Even if you don’t enjoy museums, I would suggest a visit to the Fondation Louis Vuitton - it’s in the 16th and has some really great outdoor spaces. My daughter and I really enjoyed it. It sounds as if you have a local to guide you, but I follow David Lebovitz for restaurant and other assorted tips.

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Thanks for the recommendation. My brother is actually moving there this summer, so we may do some exploring together.

Enjoy your quiet season in the Burg, BTW. :wink:

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The Rodin ā€œmuseumā€ is worth a stop- gorgeous outdoor gardens with the sculptures and the ā€œhouseā€ is less museum and more chateau ; )

This past trip we did the Paris ā€œhighlineā€ for the first time which was actually a very cool walk (near the Gare de Lyon).

We had really good luck with restaurants from the Bib Gourmand list.

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We’ve been a few times to Paris and have done the typical touristy things. But there’s always something to do, something to see! And not just museums. A couple visits ago, we walked all over (my feet hurt thinking about it now) - but saw the Eiffel tower from the Trocadero garden area (had never been before). This last visit, we opted to do an evening/night time bike ride in Paris. It was wonderful! Biking was fun. We got to see different neighborhoods, different views of the monuments.

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Not a museum person either. Some of my fondest memories of Paris was the architecture and looking at the homes/adjoining yards in the neighborhoods. Some of the most BEAUTIFUL doors/doorways every seen! Note this on your trips - entry doors in European cities are :100:!!!

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