Top 30 Day Trips From Paris - Day Trips From Paris

Thirty day trips is more than anyone takes, so this list is organized to be raided, not read whole: pick your type, check the travel time, and go. Times given are one-way from central Paris by the fastest normal route.

Our tourNormandy D-Day Tour leads our range; Loire, Champagne and Mont-Saint-Michel days run the same way

From Paris25 minutes to Chantilly, 2h30 to Sancerre, one way

AdmissionVersailles Passport €35 in season; Chambord €21 EEA, €31 others; the D-Day beaches free

OpenVersailles closed Mondays; Fontainebleau Tuesdays; Giverny April 1 to November 1

By trainDirect lines to Versailles, Chartres, Reims, Provins, Fontainebleau, Vernon, Tours and Bayeux

Time neededHalf a day to 14 hours; the list gives one-way times

The short version

One way by train, Chantilly is 25 minutes, Versailles 40, Fontainebleau 40, Reims 46, Vernon 50, Chartres about 60, Tours 64, Provins 80 and Bayeux 2h12.
Versailles closes Mondays, Fontainebleau Tuesdays, Giverny from November 2 to March 31, and the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers Mondays and Tuesdays; pick the day before the destination.
Versailles, Chartres, Provins, Fontainebleau and Auvers are single-station days; Normandy, the Loire, Champagne and Mont-Saint-Michel spread across countryside and need a vehicle at the far end.
Our Loire day pairs Chambord and Chenonceau with lunch at a private château between the Tours TGVs, and our Champagne day starts at Reims station with the Veuve Clicquot cellars and lunch at a family grower.
Our Normandy D-Day Tour meets the morning train at Bayeux and covers the American sites in one 13-hour day, $230 per person before rail; the private version leaves from your hotel at 7:00.

History and War

The Normandy D-Day beaches (2h12 by train to Bayeux, then guided vehicle; our Normandy D-Day Tour meets the train) lead the category; our network site NormandyDDayTours.com covers all five beaches. Verdun (1h50 to Meuse TGV) holds the Great War’s longest battle. Compiègne (45 min) has the Armistice clearing, Rouen (1h20) the cathedral and the Joan of Arc sites, and Fontainebleau (40 min) eight centuries of royal palace with a fraction of Versailles’ crowds.

LinkParis saysThirty is more than anyone takes. If you have one day trip in your Paris week, make it Normandy or the Loire with us: the TGV covers the distance, the guide meets your train, and the van does the countryside. If you have three, add Versailles and a train day like Chartres or Provins.John Romano, founder

About LinkParis

Castles and Palaces

Versailles (40 min, RER C, closed Mondays) is the obligatory one; our Versailles guide covers doing it right. The Loire châteaux, Chambord and Chenonceau above all, run as a guided day via Tours (1h by TGV); LoireValleyDayTours.com profiles ten of them. Add Chantilly (25 min, the château, the Condé art collection, the great stables), Vaux-le-Vicomte (50 min, the palace that provoked Versailles), Pierrefonds (1h15, Viollet-le-Duc’s fairy-tale reconstruction), and Malmaison (30 min, Josephine’s house).

Wine

Champagne is the easy win: Reims (46 min by TGV) for the cathedral and the grand houses, Epernay (1h20) for the Avenue de Champagne. Burgundy runs farther, Beaune at about 2h10, for the Hospices and the Côte d’Or villages. Chablis (2h via Auxerre), Vouvray and Chinon in the Loire (1h to Tours plus local legs), and Sancerre (2h30) round out the cellar. Guided versions of the Champagne and Burgundy days handle the driving that tastings require; the LinkParis.com day trip range covers them.

Towns Worth the Train

Provins (1h25, walled medieval town, UNESCO), Giverny (50 min to Vernon plus shuttle, Monet’s garden, April to October), Auvers-sur-Oise (35 min, Van Gogh’s last village), Chartres (1h05, the cathedral), Senlis (40 min plus bus, cobbled and quiet), Moret-sur-Loing (45 min, Sisley’s town), Barbizon (near Fontainebleau, the painters’ village), and Lille (1h02 by TGV, Flemish France) all work with nothing but a rail ticket.

The Long Shots That Work

Mont Saint-Michel (guided day via TGV; VisitMontStMichel.com has the full guide), Saint-Malo (2h25 by TGV, the walled corsair city), the D-Day and Mont Saint-Michel combination in one long day, Tours itself as a base-in-a-day, Lyon (1h56 by TGV, France’s food capital), Deauville and Trouville (2h05, the Norman coast), Amiens (1h05, the largest Gothic cathedral in France), and Disneyland Paris (35 min, RER A) fill out the thirty. Our where-Parisians-go guide adds the ones no list prints.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the easiest day trip from Paris?
Versailles: 40 minutes on the RER C, no planning beyond a ticket and avoiding Monday, when the palace closes. Chantilly at 25 minutes is even closer with a tenth of the crowd.

Which day trips need a guided tour?
The ones where the sights spread beyond a station: the D-Day beaches, the Loire châteaux, Champagne tastings, and Mont Saint-Michel all gain a vehicle and a guide. Towns like Provins, Chartres, and Giverny need only the train.

Can you do two day trips in one day?
Only on guided combinations built for it, like D-Day with Mont Saint-Michel or Reims with Epernay. Independent doubling by rail costs more time in connections than it saves.