Day trips from Paris, ranked by whether the train is worth it
Seven day trips from Paris with real train times and 2026 prices, including the Versailles slot even free visitors must book and Giverny's closed season.
Photo · Kirandeep Singh Walia · Pexels
Paris has better day trips than almost any capital in Europe, and the reason is the railway: five of the seven below are under ninety minutes from a Paris terminus and none of them needs a car.
What follows is ranked by whether the journey earns itself, with the real times and the 2026 booking rules, including one that catches out even people who are entitled to go in free.
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Open the currency converter →1. Versailles, and the slot everyone forgets
40 minutes on the RER C from central Paris, or a direct train from Montparnasse to Versailles Chantiers.
Timed entry is now mandatory for the Palace, and this is the part that catches people: even visitors entitled to free admission must book a free timed slot online. Under-18s, EU residents under 26 and several other categories go in without paying, and they still need a booked time. Turning up with a valid free entitlement and no slot does not get you in.
What it costs, checked September 2026:
| Ticket | Non-EEA adult | EEA national or resident, with proof |
|---|---|---|
| Passport, low season | €25 | €22 |
| Passport, high season | €35 | €32 |
The Passport covers the Palace, the Trianon estate and the gardens, including the Musical Fountains on the days they run. The Musical Fountains season runs 1 April to 1 November 2026 and it is what the high season price is for.
Go early or go late. The Hall of Mirrors between eleven and two is a slow shuffle. The estate is the better half anyway: the Grand and Petit Trianon and Marie Antoinette's hamlet are a twenty minute walk or a small train from the palace and hold a fraction of the people.
2. Giverny, but only in season
45 minutes to Vernon by train from Saint-Lazare, then a shuttle bus or a hired bicycle for the last few kilometres.
Open only from 1 April to 1 November, daily, 10am to 6pm with last admission at 5.30pm. Closed the rest of the year. This is the single most important fact about Giverny and it is missing from a remarkable number of day-trip lists.
Monet's house and the water garden with the lily pond and the Japanese bridge. Allow an hour and a half to two hours unguided. The house and gardens publish their own calendar, which is worth checking for the year you are going because the season dates move slightly.
Go in the first hour. The gardens are small, the paths are narrow, and the coach parties arrive mid-morning.
Add the Musée des Impressionnismes next door, which is small and good and which almost nobody visits.
3. Reims and the Champagne cellars
About 45 minutes by direct TGV from Gare de l'Est. Advance fares from around €27 each way, rising to €35 to €75 for flexible fares booked late.
This is the best value day trip on the list because the train is so fast that five or six hours on the ground is an unhurried day.
The cathedral is where the kings of France were crowned and is a serious piece of Gothic architecture in its own right. The Champagne houses, several of the biggest among them, run cellar tours and tastings within walking distance of the station.
Book the cellar tour before the train. The good ones sell out and there is no point arriving in Reims to be told the tour is full.
4. Chartres
About an hour from Montparnasse.
One cathedral, and it is arguably the finest medieval building in France: the stained glass is largely original twelfth and thirteenth century work, which is almost unheard of, and the blue is a colour nobody has been able to reproduce.
A half day, honestly. The town is pleasant and the cathedral is the reason. That is not a criticism; it is a very good half day and you can be back in Paris for dinner.
5. Fontainebleau
40 minutes from Gare de Lyon to Fontainebleau-Avon, then a bus.
The other great royal palace, and the one to choose if you have already done Versailles or if crowds are the thing you are trying to avoid. It was lived in by French monarchs for eight centuries rather than one, which makes it more of a building and less of a statement, and it has a fraction of the visitors. The forest around it is enormous and is where Paris walks.
6. Rouen
About 1 hour 15 from Saint-Lazare.
Normandy's old capital: a cathedral Monet painted more than thirty times in different light, half-timbered streets, the spot where Joan of Arc was burned, and the best restaurants of anywhere on this list.
Combine it with Giverny if you have a car, since they are on the same line west, though doing both properly in one day is a stretch.
7. Lille, if you want a different country's worth of change
One hour on the TGV from Gare du Nord.
Flemish rather than French in its architecture and its beer, with a very good art museum and a large old town. It is also the point at which a day trip stops being a day trip and starts being a reason to stay the night.
The one we would not do
Mont Saint-Michel. It is about four hours each way by train and shuttle. That is eight hours of travel for a few hours on the rock, and the two things that make Mont Saint-Michel extraordinary, the tide and the light at either end of the day, both happen when a day tripper is on a train.
Give it a night in Normandy instead. It is not a Paris day trip, whatever the coach tours say.
Getting the trains right
Paris has six main terminals and they serve different directions. Versailles is RER C or Montparnasse, Giverny and Rouen are Saint-Lazare, Reims is Gare de l'Est, Fontainebleau is Gare de Lyon, Lille is Gare du Nord, Chartres is Montparnasse.
A single metro or RER journey inside Paris is €2.55 from 1 January 2026, flat, and buses and trams are €2.05. Three of these trips are on the RER or the suburban network rather than on a long-distance ticket, which is why they are cheap.
Book the TGV legs ahead. Reims and Lille are both dramatically cheaper booked weeks out than on the day, in a way the suburban trips are not.
Short tourist stays only. Checked 21 Aug 2026; rules change without notice and the government page is the source of truth.
Check your own passport →Checked 21 Aug 2026.
Everything we check for France →What to skip
Turning up at Versailles without a timed slot, free entitlement or not.
Giverny between November and March. It is shut.
A coach tour that does Versailles in the morning and Giverny in the afternoon. Both are better slowly and the coach spends the middle of the day on the A13.
Mont Saint-Michel as a day trip. See above.
The Château de Versailles gift shop queue at closing. Every visitor leaves at the same time through the same rooms.
Booking a flexible TGV fare for a fixed plan. The advance fares to Reims are a third of the price and you already know which train you are taking.
Before you book
Two days in Paris is the city itself, with the January fare rise and the airport bus that was withdrawn in March, and the best area to stay in Paris is the arrondissement breakdown. Day trips from London is the same guide for the other end of the Eurostar, and three days in Amsterdam and three days in London are Callum's other routes. Underrated European cities has where to go when Paris is full.
The Paris city guide and the France country guide carry the practicalities, and there is more in the itineraries hub. When you are ready, Paris rooms are here and the bookable half is here.
Prices, seasons and journey times checked September 2026. Versailles changed to mandatory timed entry for all visitors including free-entitlement ones, and the château publishes its own current ticketing rules, which is the source to check rather than any guide, this one included. Here is how we research and re-check guides.
