Lyon as a Base: 7 Day Trip Plan
A full week from one Lyon base: Vienne, Beaujolais, Perouges, Annecy and Grenoble across five travel days, a flex day to recover, and a departure day built around the Rhonexpress tram rather than a rushed morning. Shorter versions of this plan run 2 through 6 days , each one the same spine with a day trimmed off the end.
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 full week is when Presqu’ile or Vieux Lyon rooms sell out first, especially around Beaujolais Nouveau week. 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 7 | Departure | About 30 min by Rhonexpress to LYS | Airport transfer |
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, still used for the summer Jazz a Vienne festival, seats 13,000 people as a working venue rather than a fenced-off ruin, and the Temple of Augustus and Livia, dated to around 10 BC, is one of France’s best-preserved Roman temples. Check current hours on vienne-condrieu.com , and cross the river to Saint-Romain-en-Gal for another hour of ruins if you want the fuller picture.
Day 2: Beaujolais and the Pierres Dorees
A car or small-group tour, not the train. Villages like Fleurie, Morgon and Julienas sit past where public transit gives out entirely, 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 Pierres Dorees area holds UNESCO Global Geopark status since 2018. This is the most physically demanding day of the week, 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 it for the cobblestones and the local galette pastry, not for a whole day’s schedule against it. Back in Lyon by early afternoon.
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 one and confirm your 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 detour by car or tour. Check current lake-cruise and cable-car schedules on lac-annecy.com . Fares for the direct TER start around 25 euros booked ahead, and summer weekends bring the heaviest crowds to both the train and the lakefront.
Day 5: Grenoble
About 1h25 by TER, hourly departures, no advance booking needed. 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 fallback covering Egyptian antiquities through Renoir and Monet if the weather turns. This is the legitimate single-day Alps trip from Lyon, unlike Chamonix, which is not: no direct train, and drive times upward of two and a half hours each way.
Day 6: Flex day in Lyon
No day trip today, and specifically not Chamonix, which runs 4 to 7 hours in transit depending on the route and turns a day trip into a wasted one against a schedule that is already this full. Spend the day actually in Lyon: revisit the bouchon that impressed you most during the week, take a slower pass through Croix-Rousse, or simply rest before the trip’s final push. The Lyon 2 day itinerary covers roughly this much city time if you want a loose plan rather than pure recovery.
Day 7: Departure
Take the Rhonexpress tram from Part-Dieu, a dedicated line separate from the city TCL fare system, reaching Lyon-Saint Exupery airport in under 30 minutes with departures roughly every 15 minutes. Buy the ticket online in advance on rhonexpress.fr rather than onboard, it is cheaper and avoids the flat surcharge charged for tickets bought on the tram itself. Build in the standard buffer for security at a mid-sized regional airport, and check the Rhonexpress schedule the day before you fly, since engineering works have periodically replaced the tram with shuttle buses during past summer periods, most recently a stretch in July and August. If your flight is genuinely early, sleeping near Part-Dieu rather than deep in Vieux Lyon shaves real time off this final morning.
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 on its own, not something added to another destination on the same schedule.
Is Beaujolais doable without a car?
Not comfortably. Public transit reaches the edge of the region but not villages like Fleurie or Morgon, so a car or an organized tour is the practical way to taste more than one domaine without driving yourself back afterward.
Confirm your Rhonexpress or return train time before Day 6, not the morning of Day 7. A full week of day trips is exactly when travelers lose track of a departure buried at the end of the plan, and a missed tram is a genuinely bad way to end an otherwise well-paced week. Pack the night before rather than after breakfast on Day 7; between the flex day and five separate day trips, laundry and souvenirs accumulate faster than a single week suggests, and a rushed final morning is the one part of this plan with no built-in slack to absorb it.