# What is the best day trip from Paris?

> Cathedrals, chateaux, a tidal island, a painter's garden and a theme park. All of them reachable and back before dinner.

*By YPB Team · Published September 17, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-day-trip-from-paris*

---

## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Palace of Versailles** — score 1000/1000
   Louis XIV's court, the Hall of Mirrors and Le Notre's gardens.
2. **Normandy D-Day beaches** — score 595/1000
   Omaha, Utah and the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer.
3. **Chartres** — score 595/1000
   A cathedral with the best-preserved medieval stained glass in France.
4. **Champagne cellars of Epernay** — score 507/1000
   The Avenue de Champagne and the chalk cellars beneath it.
5. **Chateau de Fontainebleau** — score 440/1000
   A royal residence used by every French ruler from Francois I to Napoleon.
6. **Reims** — score 372/1000
   The cathedral where French kings were crowned, in the middle of Champagne.
7. **Auvers-sur-Oise** — score 372/1000
   The village where Van Gogh painted his last seventy days and is buried.
8. **Chateau de Chantilly** — score 372/1000
   A moated chateau with the Conde art collection and the Great Stables.
9. **Rouen** — score 372/1000
   The Normandy capital and the cathedral Monet painted about thirty times.
10. **Giverny** — score 293/1000
   Monet's house and water garden, 75 km from Paris and open April to November.
11. **Loire Valley chateaux** — score 293/1000
   Chambord and Chenonceau, two hours south by train.
12. **Vaux-le-Vicomte** — score 200/1000
   The chateau whose garden made Louis XIV jealous enough to build Versailles.
13. **Mont-Saint-Michel** — score 200/1000
   An abbey on a tidal island off the Normandy coast.
14. **Disneyland Paris** — score 200/1000
   Marne-la-Vallee, forty minutes out on the RER.
15. **Provins** — score 0/1000
   A walled medieval trade-fair town with its ramparts intact.

Tags: travel, landmarks, france, paris, day trips