Three Day Trips Under 30 Minutes Away from Paris

For visitors (and Parisians, of course) wanting to get out of Paris but not travel for more than half an hour, here are three ideas for day trips to the western suburbs of Paris that will make you think you’re a world away from the city. 

Chatou, the island of the Impressionists

Did you know that the venue for Impressionist artist Auguste Renoir’s oh-so-famous painting “Le déjeuner des canotiers” (or “Luncheon of the Boating Party”) still exists and that you can eat there yourself? The fastest way to get to the Fournaise restaurant is by hopping on an RER A train from central Paris (Châtelet-Les Halles, for example) and alighting 20 minutes later at Chatou, from where it’s a short walk to the Island of the Impressionists in the middle of the Seine. 

The Île du Chiard, officially renamed Île des Impressionistes in 1972, was a favourite haunt of the great 19th century Impressionist artists such as Renoir, of course, but also Alfred Sisley, Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet. They all brought their easels here to commit to canvas the jovial outings of their contemporaries who’d come to this island (then just called Chatou island). Alphonse Fournaise would rent out boats while his wife opened the inn.  

Don’t miss the Fournaise House Museum which is in the same building just next to the restaurant. Renoir (in the form of a hologram) will accompany you around the house in an immersive experience telling you about his best years painting here and about the house itself.  

If you haven’t managed to make a reservation at the Maison Fournaise, no worries. An excellent alternative is the Rives de la Courtille just a few metres way away. In this building you can visit the Sequana (the Seine is named after this Gaulish goddess) workshop run by a group of talented volunteers who restore the Belle Epoque boats which were so popular amongst Parisians at the end of the 19th century. They also have an electric boat which visitors can embark on for a short, commented river trip.  

Train line: RER A  

Travel time: 20 minutes 

Departing stations in central Paris: Nation or Gare de Lyon or Châtelet-Les Halles or Auber or Charles de Gaulle – Étoile

Pro tips: Reservations are obligatory for Maison Fournaise (closed Mondays & Sundays, lunch menu 36€). The Sequana workshop is open to the public on Tuesdays & Thursdays or by appointment. 

Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, the barge capital of France

A 28-minute train ride from the Gare Saint Lazare gets you to Conflans-Sainte-Honorine and the Musée de la Batellerie et des voies navigables (Inland shipping and waterways museum) from which there is a stupendous view over the Seine. The museum (in a lovely house built in 1871 for industrialist Jules Gevelot) gives a very interesting overview of how important barge transport on inland waterways once was. The town is still today considered the barge capital of France because boatmasters continue to moor here either waiting to load/unload or take a short break even if the overall number of French boatmasters has collapsed from some 12,000 in the 1980s to about 3,500 today. 

Then, walk down the rue Victor Hugo to the Seine quaysides where you’ll find a choice of cafés and restaurants, pausing to admire 11^th century Tour Montjoie, the oldest keep and a rare remain of Medieval fortifications in the Ile-de-France region. 

Train line: Transilien J  

Travel time: 27 minutes 

Departing station from Paris: Gare Saint Lazare 

Pro tip: The shipping museum is open daily, except on Mondays. 

Poissy and its remarkable architecture 

This town of 41,000 inhabitants is home to two remarkable buildings and a lovely toy museum which are within an easy walk of the train station.  

The Villa Savoye, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was built as a holiday home between 1928 and 1931 by French architect Le Corbusier, in collaboration with his Swiss colleague Pierre Jeanneret, for Pierre and Eugénie Savoye. The use of concrete eliminated the need for load-bearing walls, so the house appears to float on its stilts above the garden. This monument of modernist architecture was bought by the town from the Savoyes in 1958 with the intention of building a school on the property. But André Malraux, France’s iconic Minister of Culture, stepped in a year later to save the villa, and it was restored in the 1960s. 

An 8-minute walk away will take you to another architectural masterpiece built 30 years earlier: the Maison de Fer (Iron House) which is set in the lovely English-style Meissonier Park. A brand new exhibit about the history of Poissy has just opened to complement the existing art gallery. One of just 10 houses in France built entirely of iron, using a procedure invented by 19th century Belgian engineer Joseph Danly, it was built as a country home in 1896 for Georges de Coninck and his wife Isabelle Winslow and was lived in by successive owners until 1980. After numerous misadventures, the house was finally bought and salvaged by the town of Poissy in 2016 and rebuilt it in the Meissonier Park. The newly restored house was inaugurated in 2020.  

To complete your day pay a visit on your way back to the train station to the enchanting Musée du Jouet (toy museum) which will please adults as much as children. Set in the former royal priory, the museum exhibits more than 1,000 toys from the 19th century to today: board games, dolls, toy cars and pedal cars, bicycles and scooters (yes, they existed way back when!), wind-up toys, mechanical toys, model boats, dolls’ houses, cuddly toys and more. It will provide a real trip down memory lane for adults and might even draw children away from screens!  

Train line: Transilien J or RER A 

Travel time: 21 minutes on the J line or 28 minutes on the RER A from Charles de Gaulle-Étoile 

Departing station in Paris: Gare Saint Lazare or, for the RER A: Nation or Gare de Lyon or Châtelet-Les Halles or Auber or Charles de Gaulle-Étoile 

Pro tips: Plan your visit for a Wednesday or the weekend to be sure the 3 places are open. Villa Savoye is open daily except Mondays. From the train station, cut through the old priory gardens for a quicker walk to the Villa. Maison de Fer is open Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 1pm to 6pm. The Musée du Jouet is open from Wednesdays to Fridays (10am-12:30pm and 1:30-6:00pm) and on Saturdays and Sundays (1:00-6:00pm). 

If you are not staying or do not live in the west of Paris keep in mind that these suggested destinations are perfectly accessible from wherever you are based in the Île-de-France thanks to the RER and Transilien lines (I live in Fontainebleau and used public transport to get to all three with no trouble at all). And the advantage is that you can use your Navigo transport card to reach all three so these outings will not cost you more than if you were taking a metro between stations within Paris city limits. Enjoy exploring!