Some good, easy day trips out of Paris:
Fontainebleau (huge chateau, beautiful train ride through the forest)
Giverny (Monet’s garden)
Versailles (over the top opulent chateau, gorgeous gardens)
Reims (champagne caves, cathedral)
You can take the train for all of these. Giverny might be kind of different in the winter.

Where you stay is up to you, nothing is too far away in Paris. Do a search here and in the Nightlife forum, we’ve talked a bit about France here.
You might like the Latin Quarter, you might like the Marais, or maybe Montmarte.

Was this a last-minute decision?

You can navigate www.raileurope.com to buy train tickets online for Paris-Amsterdam. Departure times, arrival times, and length of journey depend on the type of train (for example, an overnight conventional train, or a high-speed Thalys train, or a combination of trains [transfer in Brussels]). You might get many options by running the search query. I did the quey myself and the first ten options were all Thalys trains. Thalys is a high-speed rail service run jointly by the French, Belgian, and German national rail agencies, connecting the Benelux cities (Brussels, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Rotterdam, etc) to each other and to Paris and Cologne. High-speed rail is more convenient than flying for relatively short distances like Paris-Amsterdam because the train will take you from city center to city center…no need to commute to/from airports, arrive early, wait in line for check in, security, baggage claim, and all that stuff. You end up saving time, despite the fact that airplanes travel faster. (Why we Americans haven’t yet caught on to this is beyond me). Of course, if you find a cheap flight, go for it. (Although it looks like the era of cheap flights within Europe might be coming to an end?)

Then you can just fly from Amsterdam to Birmingham.

Within France: Cil gave you some great suggestions. As for what to see and do within Paris, try picking up a travel guide on Paris to see what the city has to offer, in addition to the cliché Mona Lisa. The Louvre is, of course, a treasure trove of art from various ages, as well as being itself an architecturally and historically significant building. When visiting the Louvre, try picking a particular country and time period (there’s art from all over Europe, but since you’re in France, maybe 17th and 18th century French painting…and then across the street to the Orsay for 19th century French)...you don’t wanna spend half your Paris stay in museums. You wanna explore the city too. I find the interior of the city’s many churches just as rewarding as museums. Saint-Sulpice is one of my favorite churches; it faces a charming square and it lacks the tourist hordes that you’ll see at Notre Dame cathderal (of course ND is still highly worth visiting, inside and out). Don’t do a rushed schedule of sightseeing, otherwise you’ll completely miss the actual city ...its architecture, people, culture, vibes, and soul. Venture away from the Champs Elysées ( please ), and go into the neighborhoods, and walk into random brasseries and bakeries; buy something you’ve never seen before and try it. You might even meet real locals, and realize that the stereotypes about them are false. If you have limited time, and the lines to go up the Eiffel Tower are long, just skip it…the view is much better from other spots around the city, like the open deck observation floor on La Samaritaine department store, or from the Sacré Coeur church on Montmartre hill, or the Centre Pompidou’s art museum floors…from all of these spots you get to see the Eiffel Tower itself, an attractive structure in its own right. A better alternative to going up the Eiffel Tower, would be to arrive at the Trocadéro Gardens at night, and watch as the floodlights are turned off every hour ( on the hour) and the sparkling bulbs are turned on for five minutes. (This is from dusk until 1am in the winter).

I would not use Luv’s suggestion of booking through raileurope.com Travel agents sell “global fare” tickets which almost always cost 35% more than the actual ticket price, plus there’s often a handling charge and a shipping fee involved. Using a random time/date of 8:25 on December 10, the cheapest ticket is 139 euros at raileurope and 78,50 euros at www.thalys.com You can also use the French rail site ( www.sncf.com ), or the dutch rail site ( www.ns.nl ). Both have English pages, but tend to switch languages when you get to the actual booking pages. The Thalys trains are definitely the fastest, most comfortable way to get from Paris to Amsterdam.

Ouch, I didn’t know that about raileurope. I always book on www.sncf.com (actually, click on the link for www.voyages-sncf.com) and pick up my tickets at the train station. If you speak French, this is a great option. I tried finding an English-language link but it either routes me to raileurope.com or to tgv-europe.com which seems to be malfunctioning. I think www.thalys.com would be the best option.

Excellent advice. I read on another website that if given an option you should choose to pick up your tickets at a staffed window, not an automated machine. Apparently, to retrieve your tickets you have to use the credit card you used for the online booking, and American credit cards don’t work in the automated machines: http://parisbytrain…. Any experience with this?

I don’t know about France, but I don’t think I had to use my card to print the ticket I bought on-line at trenitalia.com at the automated kiosks in Italy. I did use my card to buy several tickets at the kiosk. However that was in 2004. A lot of folks have posted problems using American credit cards on the European rail company websites in the past year.

Anyway, if your card works on the website, I’d bet it will work at the automated kiosk, too. Also, there seems to be less problem using your American card in Europe than using it at a European website. I couldn’t pay for ferry tickets on-line with my card, but I paid using the same card at the Tallink office in Helsinki.

So we don’t freak people out, I was specifically talking about France. I didn’t have problems retrieving tickets in Italy either, but I don’t think I had to use my credit card to do it. I posted the wrong link earlier. According to this page the machines in Paris (and the rest of France?) probably won’t accept American cards: http://parisbytrain….
I actually had this problem in Frankfurt trying to use an automated check-in machine that required a credit card for a Lufthansa flight. The machine denied two of my cards despite the fact that I could use those cards at ATMs, stores, restaurants, etc. in Europe.

Boy, I’ve never heard of this problem. Is the name on your cards the same as your name on the plane ticket? I’ve checked in with in Europe on Lufthansa, KLM, Air Baltic (which uses SAS for check-in) and Air France using my American credit card — all the card does is provide a name to match with the airline’s passenger data base.

I did run into a situation in Finland where there were two different slots on the ATM — one for cards “with a chip” and one for cards without. Mine worked in the “without” slot. I also had a situation where my chipless card wouldn’t work in the “swipe-it-yourself” reader but would work when the cashier swiped it in his reader. He said I needed a card with a chip for swipe it yourself. I had never heard of the “chip” issue before.

Thanks for the advice everyone..

We’ve decided to stick it out in Paris for a week, and not venture to Amsterdam( that’ll have to be for next time!! )
So we plan to stay in the Bastille or Champs Elsyees areas of Paris, as we’d like to be closer to nightclubs, then sightseeing spots.. (only cause the guys want to be able to walk to their hotel after a long night out haha) Any suggestions to hotels in these areas? and which area might be better.
We also are planning to do day trips to other spots in France near Paris… Versailles being one of them, any other places that would be nice to see?
I know we’re coming at a colder time of the year, so I’ve found that a lot of activities aren’t regularly open for Dec… does anyone know of any bike tours that still are going on?
The more information, the better… and yes “luv_the_beach” this was a last minute decision!!! But we also got a really good deal on our flights to PAris from Birmingham!

Versailles would be my “can’t miss” day trip from Paris. If you can swing an overnight trip from Paris, I’d take the train to Caen, rent a car and tour Normandy. I wouldn’t try Normandy as an on-your-own day trip, but if Normandy appeals to you and you only have a day, I think there are some packaged 1-day tours that hit many of the “high spots.”

Chartres (1 hour by train), Fountainbleu (45 minutes), and Rouen ( 1 hour 15 minutes) are also day trips from Paris.

totally agree with oldlady to see Normandy
first: pop in your band of brothers DVD set and Saving Private Ryan now…then in 3 weeks you can see the locations for real
you can go to Caen or Bayeux and join one of the small WWII companies that have minibus tours like Battlebus to give you the tour
too cold to do Givenchy
Versailles is great
But even 1 week in paris may not be enough to see it all – i’d spend all of your time in Paris, give up 1 day to tour Versailles and if you can swing it, give up a day and night to visit Normandy
happy travels

eurotrip,

Most of us won’t be able to give you hotel suggestions, as this is a budget-geared website, and the type of hotel we stay at doesn’t matter for most of us (as most of us also use hostels), thus we can’t necessarily remember the names of place(s) we have stayed at in the city. Most places are decent, if that’s what you’re worried about. Most anything 2 stars and up is good, and there’s plenty decent 1-stars. Browse travel publications for good deals; magazines like Condé Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, National Geographic Traveler, etc, often have great-budget-hotel articles for various cities (quite often Paris)...it’s possible you can get an amazingly charming hotel in a great location for a price that fits your budget.

If location is what you’re after, the Champs Elysées might not be your best bet. There’s a couple swanky clubs in the area, but aside from that, it’s probably not the way you’re expecting it to be. It’s still a beautiful avenue, but if you’re expecting it to be lined with expensive boutiques, cafes, and trendy clubs (and there are a couple of these), then you’ll be disappointed to find chain stores and lots of [rip-off] bureaux de change…the western end is pretty much like Times Square (although far less tacky), and the eastern end of the avenue is very sterile, lined with government buildings…it lacks the type of intimacy and character that you get from most of the city, although there are charming surprises if you veer off course into the neighborhoods north of the avenue. If you can find lodging in any of these districts: Marais (4th), Quartier Latin (5th and 6th), or Saint-Germain-des-Prés (6th), I say definitely go for it. These stroll-friendly neighborhoods are near plenty of cafes, pubs, and bars. Quieter areas [but also worthwhile and full of character] include Montmartre (18th), and the down-to-earth Montparnasse area (14th) which is kind of low-key to tourists, and an area I like a lot.