Eight days in France: Paris, Lyon, Mont-Saint-Michel

Eight days, three cities, two TGVs, one tide. France is too big for a week and too small for a month — eight days is the honest middle. You get the icons in Paris, the bouchon dinner in Lyon that ruins you for any other dining room, and the dawn at Mont-Saint-Michel where the bay drains and the abbey looks like it's floating.

Paris is Days 1–4. Right Bank, Left Bank, Montmartre + Marais, then a slow day so you actually feel the city instead of just photographing it.

Lyon is Days 5–6. Two hours from Paris on the TGV, gastro capital of France, and the only place in the country where you can eat three Michelin-starred meals and a quenelle de brochet at a tiled-floor bouchon in the same week.

Mont-Saint-Michel is Days 7–8. The hardest to reach, the easiest to remember. You arrive in the late afternoon, walk the causeway as the tide is going out, and you have the abbey almost to yourself by 6pm because the day-trippers are on the bus back to Paris.

Total walking: ~50,000 steps. Total TGV time: ~5 hours. Skip August (Paris empties out, Lyon shuts down, MSM bakes). Best window: late April to late June, then September.