CHOO CHOO! Trains to Europe...

Dead_Eye_Jones

Hi,
I quite fancy travelling by train to SE France or Italy. I am interested to hear from anyone who has done this or looked into it, etc!

What route did you take, where did you go?
Did you go through an agent that booked it all, or worked it out yourself?
Are there specialist operators who can sort it all out?
Any particularly "special" routes, breathtaking mountain scenery etc?
Any particularly "special" trains - ok the orient express is outta our price range but any other regular trains out there that are a little more interesting?

Was it enjoyable, or did you get to the end and think, "ya know, getting a plane would have been sooooo much easier"?!

And of course, any money saving tips?

Many thanks

Sam_Bee

Seat 61 http://www.seat61.com/ is a great place to start your research, a true labour of love and kept updated.

Dead_Eye_Jones

dude, wow, thanks for that, I look forward to having a good read

bouquiniste

French TGVs (high speed trains) are excellent – fast, efficient, clean etc. You could take the Eurostar over to Paris (book via Rpoints and get cashback). Then depending on where you want to go, change stations. This http://www.tgv.com/UK/index_HD.html is the site in English.

serena

Years ago I did the overnight from Paris to Turin, and really enjoyed it - remember waking myself up at Dijon in the early hours to see what it waas like!

Friends have done the TGV to Nice recently, and booked themselves on the SNCF website. Another friend has just gone by Eurostar to Avignon, and booked directly with Eurostar at Ashford International.

The new TGV service to the East of France starts very soon, and opens up that side of the country - and the ones further on.

Have fun!

Victors_Bruvver

serena wrote: »

Years ago I did the overnight from Paris to Turin, and really enjoyed it - remember waking myself up at Dijon in the early hours to see what it waas like!

Friends have done the TGV to Nice recently, and booked themselves on the SNCF website. Another friend has just gone by Eurostar to Avignon, and booked directly with Eurostar at Ashford International.

The new TGV service to the East of France starts very soon, and opens up that side of the country - and the ones further on.

Have fun!

Do go to the https://www.voyages-sncf.com website and look out for the "other languages" page.

It does take a bit of time to get use to but once you say that you are in GB, want your tickets charged in euros they will be posted to you (alternative is to collect from Raileurope in Piccadilly) you will get a better deal than going onto the Raileurope website.

I have used the SNCF site for a couple of years now and whilst they own Raileurope, I find it less frustrating to use and I do not have to call their "customer unfriendly" 0870 call centre number and be told, whilst "clocking up" pounds, they are extremely busy and I am in a queue.

Just one tip, it is obviously easy to book tickets and seats on SNCF for either first or standard journeys but if you want to travel on a sleeper, just watch out for that little tab that allows you to choose your seating preference. Don't do what I did and ignore it and end up in a reclining seat across France and Spain for 12 hours overnight!

Good luck and by the way, there is another tab that once your have chosen your journey you are given the option to purchase another ticket and in this way you build up your journey so before you log out and go and buy a Eurostar ticket here in the UK see what SNCF are proposing to charge. Most likely it is more than the UK price but sometimes they have promos.

wostok02

Hi, I have also read recently- but not tried it yet myself, that if you state on the Eurostar origin country anything but the UK (you can even pretend you are American), the tickets ususally work out cheaper.

This way you can save some more cash!

Dead_Eye_Jones

just revisting, thanks for the posts

We are thinking about spending a night in Paris and then heading off somewhere from there!