We were in Paris for a week, and down in the eastern Riviera for our second week 6/10-6/25/12. First time in France, so we hit most of the typical tourist sites in Paris, Louvre, Eiffel, Versailles, Notre Dame, etc. Probably our most enjoyable visit was to the Musee d'Orsay, in the old Gare d'Orsay train station. The most beautiful building housing an art museum we've ever seen. It's also a great place for lunch while you're there, and the observation deck up on the roof provides a knockout view of Paris. We took a nice little apartment in the 11th, two blocks from the Place de Republique. Right on the corner across the street from the Oberkampf Metro. We saved a wad of money staying there and found it very convenient for getting around town. The Metro is great...why don't we have one in Chicago? Highly recommend getting the 4 day Paris Museum Pass which was very handy. Missed a few things...we really wanted to see Chartres and just couldn't work it in.

Took the TGV down to Nice for our second week. Quite an experience pushing 200mph on the rails for much of the trip. The TGV is great. We're the greatest country on earth, why don't we have a TGV, eh?

We stayed in a lovely villa in Roquebrune Cap-Martin, just maybe 50 steps down the hill from the old village of Roquebrune. We found it to be a great base of operations for the week. Drove to Antibes, Arles, Eze, Monaco, over to Menton. There's a reason why the Riviera is so popular...it's absolutely beautiful, driving around up on the corniches with these fabulous views of the sea. And our villa had the most spectacular view of the sea and the entrance to the Monte Carlo Port Hercule in the distance from our terrace.

We booked both the Paris apartment and the Roquebrune villa using Home Away. It was great. Easy to use, our hosts were very nice people to do business with, I highly recommend it, particularly for a group...we were 5 and an apartment or villa rental is the only way to go, IMO.