kitkatft

I think I might jump on an award sale to Paris with a family member who wants to practice French.

Short enough turnaround that we want to get to a particular city, settle in, and only see that city (apart from getting to/from that city).

We're going to use Paris as the airport because it's easy to get to on this award sale and we know it's a great fallback -- if we can't find somewhere easy to go instead of Paris, 5-6 days in Paris will be awesome.

However, we're both thinking, "Hmmmm ... TGV ..."

Looks like the weather all over France / French-speaking-Belgium / French-speaking-Switzerland is fall-like and generally "grab your jacket" (with mere variations on how thick a jacket), so weather doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

If we were to use Paris only as an airport and actually properly "visit" some other city, where should we go? (No more than 4-ish hours by train, please.) I see Strasbourg, Lyon, Brussels / towns-of-Wallonia, Geneva, Bordeaux, and, well, really just about everything except the big cities of the southern coast.

Great hivemind ... what should we actually do?

(Bonus secondary question: Is anywhere outside of Paris, but within a 4-hour train ride, known as a fresh-produce foodie kind of place in that part of the fall? Like, is there a San Francisco of Francophone Europe? I'm a bit of a locavore-foodie, and it strikes me that tomatoes shouldn't yet have died on the vine...)