FRANCE · WESTERN EUROPE
Paris first, then all of France.
Day trips from the capital, Riviera beaches and Provence light, Champagne cellars and Loire châteaux. The tours worth booking, and how to plan the days around them.
Only in France
A few things France keeps to itself.
Palaces, museums and old battlefields exist all over the world. A royal seat on the scale of Versailles, the Louvre and the Orsay one Metro ride apart, and the beaches where D-Day happened do not. Start the trip with these.
The Sun King’s palace
The Palace of Versailles
Louis XIV built nothing on this scale anywhere else, and the courts that tried to copy it never quite managed. The Hall of Mirrors, the painted state apartments, and gardens that run flat to the horizon. Half an hour from Paris and a full century away.
- 1 Paris: Versailles Palace and Gardens Full Access Ticket
- 2 Versailles: Skip-the-Line Tour of Palace and Gardens Access
- 3 From Paris: Versailles Palace & Gardens with Transportation
The art everyone knows
The Louvre & the Orsay
The Mona Lisa hangs in one building, the great Impressionists in a converted railway station down the river. Paris keeps more of the art you have known your whole life than any other city. You come to stand in front of it in person.
- 1 Paris: Orsay Museum Entry Ticket
- 2 Louvre Museum Masterpieces Guided Tour with Access
- 3 Paris: Louvre Museum Entry Ticket With Host and River Cruise
The Normandy coast
The D-Day Beaches
Omaha, Utah, the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc and the rows of white crosses above the sand. The longest day happened on this stretch of Normandy coast and nowhere else, and standing on the beaches says more than any book about it.
- 1 Normandy D-Day Sites & Cemetery Day Trip from Paris with Lunch
- 2 From Paris: Giverny, Monet’s Home & Gardens Half-Day Trip
- 3 Normandy D-Day Small-Group Day Trip with Omaha Beach, Cemetery & Cider Tasting
Beyond the capital
There is a whole country south of Paris.
An hour or two from the city the land opens into the Loire, where Renaissance kings built their châteaux straight across the river. Chambord, Chenonceau, Amboise, gardens and vineyards in between. The easiest reminder that France is far more than its capital.
The Loire châteaux →Start here
The one nearly everyone books first.
The most popular experience on the whole site, and an easy way to open a few days in Paris.
The headliners
France’s Most Popular Tours
The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Versailles and a cruise down the Seine. The experiences that fill most first trips to France.
By region
Each region is a different France.
Paris for the museums and the river. The Riviera for the sea and the light. Normandy for the history. Bordeaux for the wine. The Loire for the châteaux.
By experience
Or start with what you love doing.
Wine tours if you came to taste. A river cruise if you want the city from the water. Museums, walking tours, food markets, cabaret and the rest.
Based in Paris
Day trips from the capital.
Versailles is the famous one, but Paris is a doorstep to far more. Three of the best, each an easy train or drive from the city, picked by how long a day you want.
Wine & the table
France is a country you can taste.
Bordeaux and Burgundy, the Champagne caves, Loire whites and Provence rosé. A tasting or a long lunch in the vineyards is not a side trip in France, it is the reason for the trip. Spend a day among the rows that made wine famous.
- 1 Authentic Parisian Gourmet Food Tour with 10 Local Dishes & Wines
- 2 Loire Valley Castles Day Trip from Paris with Complementary Wine
- 3 Bordeaux: Cité du Vin Entry Ticket and Wine Tasting
On the river
Paris from the Seine.
The river slides past the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre-Dame and a string of bridges. An hour on the water lines the whole city up. Three cruises worth boarding.
The south coast
Down on the Côte d’Azur.
Nice and its bay, the corniche roads cut into the cliffs, Monaco and Saint-Tropez along the water. Three days on the Riviera that earn the trip south.
After the lights come on
Paris after dark.
A cabaret on the Right Bank, dinner drifting past a floodlit Eiffel Tower, the city seen from a rooftop. The three evenings we would clear space for.
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