First time to France

How long is your trip? The amount of time makes a huge difference in what you will be able to see and how to plan your time.

First: Yes, Nice and Bordeaux are both worth visiting. Bordeaux wouldn’t be my first choice but obviously you have an interest there.

Nice is worth a visit in itself, art museums, the Cours Saleya market, the Promenade Anglais along the shore, the wonderful mountains are all fun to visit. You might want to make a trip to Cagnes sur Mer and the area above it. Also near Nice is Vence where you would enjoy the old town area and also St. Paul de Vence which is a lovely preserved hill town. It’s very touristy but you’re a tourist so why not enjoy it! It’s fun to wander the cobblestone streets and look at the galleries and the ancient buildings. The views from the terraces are incredible.

The area is great. You can take a train to Antibes where the coastal views are fabulous, there is a terrific sand beach, the old town is lovely and there is a wonderful Picasso Museum. You could easily spend a couple weeks in the Nice area.

We like the area around Bordeaux but are not particularly enamoured with Bordeaux proper. It’s a reasonably pretty city and has plenty of tourist attractions but if your main interest isn’t wine, there are other much prettier cities in France. If your time is limited, you might consider spending the extra time in Paris rather than Bordeaux and do Bordeaux on a future trip, staying outside in the lovely countryside at a chateau and making side trips into Bordeaux. There are chateau properties in every price range.

To get some more information, try http://www.virtualtourist.com and type either Nice or Bordeaux into their search window and select "Destinations" from the dropdown on the right. You do not have to join to do this. Another good web site is http://www.fodors.com and again you type your city into the search window and select "France" from the dropdown menu on the right.

You don’t give your age, budget or interests but if you are either younger, more adventurous or on a tight budget, you might get useful information at http://www.lonelyplanet.com which is aimed at the backpacking crowd but has lots of useful information for anyone.

If you want to share your time frame, your interests and your budget, perhaps we can make some more useful suggestions. If you ask for help on any other forums such as the ones suggested above, you will get better responses if you add that information in your original querie.

Hope this is a good start. Have a great trip.

Thats great SalB. To be honest, I chose Nice because I’ve heard it’s a nice area and there is a train to Monaco so it can be visited as well. Really our budget is super tight because I want to have some money for when I go back to university. I only chose Bordeaux over anywhere else because I was hoping there was a night train and that we could make a saving by using a couchette for the night. Our whole trip will be 14 days with about 10 of them spent in France. It is the first time I will have travelled without some guide so it is a bit daunting especially around Paris, but I will embrace it nonetheless.
I have bought a French speaking book to brush up on my French as I think its only good manners to try to speak a little of their language however bad it may be.

Thanks for the extra information. With 14 days, I’d be tempted to spend half in the Nice area and half in the Paris area. There are wonderful day trips from both.

Besides Paris, you could visit Versailles, Giverny and Chartres in that area. I gave you suggestions for the Nice area in the last post.

If you are looking for budget hotels, try clicking on the blue and red France.com at the top of this page. You’ll go to the home page where you can do a hotel search. You’ll find the least expensive hotels in the Latin Quarter and it’s central to all the tourist sights and a very busy fun place to stay. Paris is not an expensive city unless you want to stay at very high-end hotels. Rooms are cheap; food is cheap; transportation is cheap. What more can you ask? You can get a museum pass to save money and escape the long lines. If you want free art and music, check out the churches!

Another option on the home page: Look over on the right side of your screen and click on the word Hostels. That will let you search for youth hostels and some very inexpensive hotels. You do not have to be a youth to stay in the hostels but they can be a bit rowdy. Depends on what you like! For many, the rowdy part is the charm and you will meet people.

We always reserve our Paris hotel on the France.com web site and have never had a problem. I like the hotel search because it shows photos and there are reviews written by people who have actually stayed at the hotels. Some are brutally honest!

Good luck.

Thanks for your help,

just on the point of Nice, are there night trains from Paris, as we’d like to travel down there at night and use the couchettes, to save on accomodation.

Thanks

macca: You must let us know how the trip went. Nice is on the horizon for next spring for Mrs Donerail and me. Donerail

I will do. The hostel I’m thinking of going to is a converted church, looks beautiful.

You can get your train information at http://www.sncf.com

It’s the official web site for the French rail system and has schedules, etc.