Lyon as a Base: 6 Day Trip Plan
Six days runs the full set of worthwhile Lyon day trips, Vienne, Beaujolais, Perouges, Annecy and Grenoble, then adds a flex day rather than a sixth trip, because five straight days of trains and tastings leaves nobody rested for what comes next. Shorter versions of this plan run 2 through 5 days , each one this exact spine with a day trimmed off the end. The 7 day version adds a dedicated departure day on top of this one.
Book these before you go
- Book the Beaujolais tour first, small-group departures sell out fastest in tasting season and around Beaujolais Nouveau week. Book the wine tour
- Perouges by tour skips the train connection and the uphill walk. Book the Perouges tour
- Annecy direct trains are limited to about six a day, book seats or a guided day trip ahead. Book the Annecy day trip
- A week-long stay is exactly when Presqu’ile or Vieux Lyon rooms sell out first. Check rates on Booking.com
| Day | Day trip | Distance/time from Lyon | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Vienne | About 30 min by TER | Roman ruins, half day |
| Day 2 | Beaujolais + Pierres Dorees | About 30-45 min by car or tour | Wine country, full day |
| Day 3 | Perouges | About 40 min by TER plus a walk | Medieval village, half day |
| Day 4 | Annecy | About 1h50-2h15 direct by TER | Lake and mountains, full day |
| Day 5 | Grenoble | About 1h25 by TER | Alps taste, full day |
| Day 6 | Flex day in Lyon | None, stay in the city | Recovery, no train |
Day 1: Vienne
About 30 minutes by direct TER from Part-Dieu or Perrache, book seats on sncf-connect.com the night before. The Ancient Theatre and the Temple of Augustus and Livia cover the essentials in a half day, the theatre still hosts the summer Jazz a Vienne festival if your dates line up, and the temple, dated to around 10 BC, is one of the best-preserved anywhere in France. Check current hours on vienne-condrieu.com , and add Saint-Romain-en-Gal across the river if Roman ruins are genuinely your interest rather than a box to tick.
Day 2: Beaujolais and the Pierres Dorees
Book a car or small-group tour, this is not a trip public transit reaches. Villages like Fleurie, Morgon and Julienas sit past where the rail network gives out, and a half-day tour typically covers two to four domaines with Gamay-based tastings, plus the golden-stone Pierres Dorees hamlets around Oingt, listed at beaujolais.com . Oingt is ranked one of France’s Most Beautiful Villages and the wider area holds UNESCO Global Geopark status. This is the most demanding day physically, keep the evening quiet.
Day 3: Perouges
A half day, not a full one. About 40 minutes by TER to Meximieux-Perouges plus a 20 minute uphill walk, or 30 minutes by car with cheap parking outside the gates. Worth the cobblestones and the local galette pastry, not worth a whole day’s schedule. Back in Lyon by early afternoon, use the rest of the day loosely rather than planning anything demanding.
Day 4: Annecy
Budget the whole day. Direct TER trains run 1h50 to about 2h15, and only around six direct services run daily, so take the earliest reasonable departure and confirm the return service before you leave the hotel. The Vieille Ville, the lake and the Chateau d’Annecy are the core stops, with the Col de la Forclaz viewpoint worth the extra effort by car or tour. Check current lake-cruise and cable-car schedules on lac-annecy.com . Fares start around 25 euros booked ahead, and summer weekends bring the heaviest crowds.
Day 5: Grenoble
About 1h25 by TER, hourly departures, no advance booking required. The Bastille cable car, dating to 1934 and one of the world’s first urban cableways, reaches Alpine views in minutes, and the Musee de Grenoble is a solid rainy-day fallback covering Egyptian antiquities through Renoir and Monet. This is the legitimate single-day Alps trip from Lyon.
Day 6: Flex day in Lyon
Do not book a sixth day trip here, and specifically do not attempt Chamonix. With no direct train and 4 to 7 hours in transit depending on the route, it turns what should be a day trip into a wasted one, and nothing about it fits a base-in-Lyon schedule anyway. Use the day to actually be in Lyon instead: a slower look at Croix-Rousse, a return visit to whichever bouchon impressed you most during the week, or simply catching up on sleep after two travel-heavy days in a row. If you want a proper city-focused day rather than pure recovery, the Lyon 2 day itinerary covers roughly this much city time and hits Vieux Lyon and Fourviere without overloading the day.
Is Beaujolais doable without a car?
Not comfortably. Public transit reaches the edge of the region but not the villages that matter, so a car or an organized tour is the practical way to taste more than one domaine without driving yourself afterward.
How long does the Annecy day trip actually take?
About four hours of travel round trip, since direct services run 1h50 to 2h15 each way. Treat it as a full day, not something layered onto another destination on the same schedule, and build the flex day into your recovery plan rather than your Annecy day itself.
Put the flex day right after Grenoble, not before it. Back-to-back full-day trips without a break is the fastest way to burn out on this itinerary, and Day 6 exists specifically to absorb that before you have to think about packing. If the weather turns against you on what would otherwise be a travel day, this is also the built-in buffer: swap the flex day for whichever trip got rained out and use a genuinely free afternoon in Lyon instead, rather than trying to force a soaked day trip onto an already tight schedule.