Multi-Day Tours in Paris

In Paris a multi-day tour means two different things. The first is the overnight trip out of the city, which exists because the sights are too far apart for one day: the Loire castles are about 180 km away, Chablis about 190, Mont Saint-Michel roughly 360. The second is a two-day ticket for the city itself: a 48-hour Paris Museum Pass, collected from an information centre near the Louvre and covering more than fifty sights including Versailles, and a two-day hop-on hop-off bus ticket that comes with a one-hour river cruise on the Seine.

The overnight trips begin at your door. The driver collects you at about 7:30 or 8:00 from a hotel, apartment, station or airport in Paris, and the last day ends with a drop-off in the city, usually between eight and ten in the evening. Breakfast and hotel nights are bundled into nearly all of them, with lunch, dinner and tips left to you; the five-day run to Nice leaves the hotels to you. Groups are private, so the pace is yours.

Practical. Paris afternoons average 25C in July and 7C in January, and Normandy is a few degrees cooler and wetter in every season, so pack a rain layer even in summer. The Museum Pass counts consecutive days from first use, and the Louvre still wants a free timed slot booked for pass holders; it is closed on Tuesdays. The city tickets are free to cancel up to 24 hours ahead. The long private trips follow their own rules, from a day of notice to a couple of months or more, so read the terms of each before paying.