Hi all,
We will be traveling from Frankfurt (Hahn Airport) to Paris in late June. What would be the best route to take? We will be staying in the Latin Quarter (Hotel Minerve). Any advice would be appreciated.
Merci,
Earl
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Are you quite sure you want to make this journey by car? You will not want a car when you are in Paris where street parking is a near impossibilty especially in the center. Secure parking will cost you about 25€ a day.
You can fly inexpensively from FRA to CDG with Air Berlin, and, since I assume you are returning to Germany before returning to the US, a RT ticket on Lufthansa or Air France might not be too expensive either, depending opn your travel dates.
The train will also get you to Paris reasonably quickly - about as quickly as you could make the trip by car.
If you have already thought about all these issues and options and still want to drive, www.viamichelin.com is the best place to check out routes, travel times, and toll and fuel costs (at about 1€35 per liter).
www.airberlin.com
www.lufthansa.com
www.airfrance.fr
www.bahn.de
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IrishRovr, %26quot;Frankfurt%26quot;-Hahn has not much to do with Frankfurt - it is just another Ryanair invention. It is in the middle of nowhere halfway between Frankfurt and Luxemburg actually...
Earldobs, why are you flying into Hahn? there is nothing to do there and if you arrive by Ryanair you can as well fly into Beauvais - it is at least reasonably close to Paris. And if there is a REALLY bad idea, it is having a car in central Paris. If you have your tickets already booked, take a shuttle bus to Cologne, Mannheim or Frankfurt and a train from there to Paris.
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The best way to plan your trip would be with the viamichelin site. Input your departure and destination towns, Michelin does the rest, including tolls, est. times, expected cost of petrol AND radar warnings.
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It has been many years since I%26#39;ve done the trip, and if you stick with the major roadways, it isn%26#39;t all that exciting. However, the shortest route will take your right through Reims, which is a wonderful place to stop. Reims is about 3 1/2 hours from Lautzenhausen (Hahn Airport), so if you leave early enough, you%26#39;ll arrive just in time for lunch, and have plenty of time to tour the Cathedral. I don%26#39;t think you would have enough time to visit any of the Champagne houses in the area if you wanted to continue on to Paris, but if you decided to spend the night, you certainly would. Reims to Paris is another 2 hours or so, depending on traffic.
As IrishRovr and others have said, viamichelin is a good site, but I like autoroutes.fr myself for research, and for a printed map, I like Hallwag maps.
Since you%26#39;ll be doing the trip in summer, be certain you rent a car with A/C. Even though it might not seem warm enough, you%26#39;ll appreciate it when you%26#39;re driving 140km/hr on the auto routes. I discovered the hard way a long time ago that driving with the windows down at 90 miles an hour for an extended period can be simply awful!!
I do also suggest that you plan to arrive in Paris on a Saturday or Sunday, or late in the evening. If you%26#39;re not familiar with driving in the city, I don%26#39;t suggest arriving during peak driving times in the middle of the week.
There will be a lot of people who will try to convince you that driving is a bad idea. Especially driving in Paris. I%26#39;m not one of them. I am a long distance driver here in the states, and often drive to places that other people think I should fly to. I think you%26#39;re either a driver, or you%26#39;re not. If you are the driving type, don%26#39;t let the detractors convince you not to take the trip by car. I have rented cars several times in Paris and other cities throughout Europe and absolutely love it. There are issues with parking in Paris, and it is not the easiest city to drive in, but parking is just something to deal with, and driving can be nervewracking, but if you have a clear head on your shoulders, it%26#39;s doable.
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altamiro -
I was aware that HHN and FRA are two different airports, which is why I specified flying from FRA in my response, rather than simply saying Frankfurt. I too do not know why Earl is trying to get from HHN to Paris, but I do know that Ryanair does not fly this route, and I don%26#39;t think anyone else does either.
Earl-
The other problem with driving, unless you are returning to Germany (which I assumed in my previous post) is that one-way drop-off/repatriation charges for a German rental car would be VERY expensive.
But, all things considered, the easiest of all, and perhaps as quick as any, would be to get the shuttle to Cologne and take the 5-hour Thalys (high speed train) to paris from there.
However, as ArrowCapet says, driving is certainly an option if you have taken everything else involved into account.
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%26lt;%26lt;There will be a lot of people who will try to convince you that driving is a bad idea%26gt;%26gt; Not I!!!
That is one of the things I was surprised to learn in this forum... how many visitors would never even consider driving in the city. If you do drive in, be sure to take a tour around the Arc de Triumphe. WHEEEEeeeeee!!!!!
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HI All,
Thanks for all the input. We are flying Ryan Air into Hahn from London (Stansted - another out of the way airport), I did not realize that Hahn was so far away from Frankfurt when I booked, or for that matter that Stansted was so far out of London either. I should have done more homework. Orginally we were going to either fly or take the train from London to Paris and then continue on to Frankfurt by rail or air. From Frankfurt we were going to fly back to the U.S.. I missed my chance to buy tickets from Boston to London returning back to Boston from Frankfurt. The price just went up too much. So we will fly roundtrip from Boston to London. After arriving at Hahn I plan to drive to Paris, we have a morning flight so I think I will arrive in Paris around 6:00p.m. While in Paris I do not plan on driving (I already have arranged parking with the hotel). From Paris we will travel to Colmar, FR and then work our way through the Black Forest area of Germany back towards Hahn. We really want to see some of the smaller towns in France and Germany. From Hahn we fly back to London and then home the following day. Again, thanks for all the help.
Earl
P.S. What%26#39;s my best travel option to visit Versailles while in Paris?
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Just picking up a small point from Arrowcarpet%26#39;s post - the speed limit on French autoroutes is actually 130kph in the dry and drops to 110kph if it%26#39;s wet. But AC is worth having!
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