All of my hotels are booked for France now. This will be my first attempt at mutilocation stays in a country and I am going rather ambitious. While I am sure I could spend the whole trip in Paris alone my plans for France have me visiting the Somme battlefields because I am a big WWI buff and also I wanted to visit Normandy (which is in a completely different direction from the Somme). Also I have my need to visit castles so I have planned to visit at least two chateau in a couple of the regions I will be staying. I feel if I try to visit some of these locations on a day trip from Paris I will be disappointed at how short my time in each attraction is. My best remedy was to stay in hotels close to the locations I want to visit. In the long haul it will cause me more travel hassle to get all my stuff from one location to another. I will also test my ability to get from point A to point B even more than I have in previous trips. It will however reduce my need to travel multiple hours both to and from a site in a single day. I am encouraged by my own ability to reach my required destinations though and in Sweden I even visited more places than I intended to visit overall without great issue. Ok, so the rain in Gotland really did break my spirit by late afternoon but I did manage to get there and back successfully.
I have already purchased the train pass as well. Like the other Eurail passes it will be for a number of non-consecutive days where you can travel as much as you want on those days. Due to the number of hotel changes I had to go for six days of travel. I am going to have to pack lighter for this trip and I have the feeling I will bring a duffel in the suitcase so I can bring back more than I started with (as is generally the case with vacation travel). The idea of carrying the hardside suitcase I bought in Japan around through 4 hotel switches is not a pleasant one so I will have to downsize it and go for one that is in general lighter than it. My packing will be similar to how I packed for Sweden but I expect by May it will be a tad warmer than Sweden in late October. I will try to get a hotel laundry somewhere along the way (maybe at Amien because that is where I will be staying at what I believe is a chain hotel, the Ibis).
I will post all the hotel links soon as well as the info on booking the rail pass.
