Recommend me a French town please?

[TheDogdidGood]

Have a chance to go to France for a week in Spring. I need to fly in and out of one of the major airports. I've already been to Paris. Is there a town that I can get a train from one of the major cities with an airport that's a bit quieter? I love old architecture and cobbled streets. Thank you!

Dinan is lovely but not sure there are still flights to Dinard.

You can’t really go wrong with any of these. Bergerac is also nice and has an airport. Depends where you can fly to from your airport?

Gare de Lyon (Paris) to Nimes or Paris Austerlitz to Orléans. Both cobbled with old architecture. Nimes has an ampitheatre. Orléans you could probably "do" in a day but good base for Chateaux.

Wow! Wasn't expecting so many replies. Thank you! Basically I'm coming back to the UK for a wedding and thought I'd take in a week in France since I'm over there anyway. I really just want to wander old streets (I live in Oz now and miss this!) look at old buildings and say "Je voudrais un croissant!" 😁I'll be flying in and out of London. I won't drive when I'm there so will be bus or train from airport.

I've spent time in Brittany before and loved St. Malo. I'll now have to google all these other places. Thank you so much! I'm leaning towards Carsaconne.... :)

Beat me to it.

@TheDogdidGood

Thank you so much! I'm leaning towards Carsaconne

You mentioned flying in and out of one of the major airports so just be advised Carcassonne is not a major airport, traffic is a bit seasonal and so depending when in spring you are thinking if traveling you might struggle to find flights ex-London to fit your schedule.

You might need to consider flying into Toulouse and then getting a train to Carcassonne from there (For info there’s a shuttle bus that runs between Toulouse Blaganc airport and the main railway station in Toulouse itself ).

Another vote for Beziers, oldest city in France!. We stayed there this summer and enjoyed it a lot. We also went to Carcassone, we enjoyed it but honestly once you've been to the citie (which is frankly a bit batshit) the rest of the toem is pleasant but not much to write home about.

Montpelier will definitely fulfil the historic streets brief.

@Ginmonkeyagain

We also went to Carcassone, we enjoyed it but honestly once you've been to the citie .,.

😊Speaking as a sort of local to the place I’d maybe be a bit more diplomatic but I know what you mean.

Carcassonne gets a lot of love on the travel threads, it’s worth a visit but if I was pressed I’d say it really wouldn’t be somewhere I’d want to spend an entire week and yes, the Citie has a certain err…charm to it that many find wears a bit thin after a day or two.

If you have wheels it’s not a bad place to be based but I think the OP is planning on not driving.

Haven't seen it recommended yet, but Rennes is lovely. And is perfect for wandering around and absorbing the French atmosphere.

Another vote for Avignon.

A bit of a complication with some of the suggestions is the OPs requirement for a major airport at the French end…

There are some fine places being suggested but some are going to be tricky to get to easily directly from London outside of late spring>peak holiday season.

@notimagain Ha! I didn't mean to disparage your home town! We went on a day trip from Beziers and it was definitely something to experience. But, by the time we had walked around the cite, had a very nice lunch at a cafe in the small town outside the walls and then spent a couple of hours wandering around the ville basse we were ready to go home.

May be because we have similar "preserved" castles in the UK we didn't quite get the wow factor that visitors from, say the US do.

Toulouse is lovely and you can visit carcassonne really easily from there

I would agree that Carcassonne is a day trip, not a base for a week. A week is quite long anywhere so needs to be a city with lots to do or somewhere relaxing but close to places to visit by public transport.

That is probably a better idea. I would say of you are in the area if is definitely worth a visit but I can't see it has much to offer for several days.

The train station at Carcassone seems pretty well connecred. It took us about 40 mins to get there from Beziers. We went through Narbonne, which is pretty nice city as well.

I think our train was going to Bordeaux eventually.

Lyon is another one I would also recommend. It is a fascinating city - lots of historic sights, Roman ruins, very big foodie scene and set over two beautiful rivers.

The WW2 museum is also very good.

I love Bordeaux. It is beautiful, wonderful to potter round and the food is amazing. Plus you can get to the coast relatively easily for a day and you can get the train to St Emilion for a day for more beauty and wine and food.

Ok, so slightly not sticking to the OP’s brief on two counts. But how about Eurostar rather than flying? Quicker and easier from the U.K. depending where you’re going. I did a two centre trip last year from London. Eurostar directly to Lille which was lovely, nicer than i expected. Then I caught a train to Ghent. Which I know is Belgium, but it was an hour max direct train from Lille, Ghent was full of great architecture and nice cobbled streets. I came back by catching a train from Ghent to Brussels and then Eurostar back to London.

An easy option flying from London using public transport would be to fly to Lyon and stay in the old town/vielle ville area. There is a cheap and easy Satobus or a train from the airport to the old but then you can wander around the old bit eating in amazing restaurants, wandering around old roads and buildings and going up the funicular. There are two rivers that meet there so it is very picturesque. There is a medieval village called Perouges 45mins from Lyon that is well worth a day trip. Annecy can also be reached for a day trip.

So many lovely places but in Spring I would fly to Nice. It won’t be so busy in spring, we often go at Easter.

From there you can get the train along the coast to Cannes one way and Monaco in the other or even pop to Italy using the train for a day trip.

Toulouse is one of my favourites

Saint Jean de Luz, beautiful and brimming with history. Fly to Biarritz / Bayonne. You can also pop across the border into Spain and visit San Sebastian.

+1 to taking the Eurostar to Paris from London then taking a train from Paris anywhere else in the country. That would be much easier than trying to fly @TheDogdidGood

I also recommend Nice and all the little towns along the train line. It’s easy to get around.

Tours (Loire Valley) is worth a look as well. Wine and chateaux country. Blois, Amboise, Chinon, Chenonceau all nearby by train. You can also hire an e-bike and cycle the Loire river bike path between towns which is very flat and safe.

No idea re transport links, but we stayed in Colmar ( which bizarrely doesn't sound very French at all!) on a recent road trip and it's absolutely stunning! We could easily have stayed 3 or 4 nights there.