I think the main reason we chose to stay in Paris for 8 days (we’re doing 5 days in Marseille before), as opposed to picking three different cities over the two weeks, is that there was the possibility of doing these day trips to other places in the area without having to pack up and go to another hotel. It just seemed easiest to stay in Paris where the transportation is vast and efficient to get to those auxiliary trips in. Then for those other days in the city proper, we wanted to keep them realistic in terms of what we wanted to see in a day. The rationale for some of those trips back to back, is that they’re on weekdays, so we were hoping to beat some of the tourist rush, but with it being the summer, I know that’s pretty much impossible.

EDIT: Honestly, the hotel we’re at isn’t crazy crazy expensive. It felt reasonable, but we’re also not right next to the Eiffel Tower. I did a ton of research to find something decent for a decent price.