Any tips for travelling around France by rail?

kuepper

Bit confused by the seat61 website, it's a bit of information overload for my ageing brain. I'm thinking of a few days (or more) each in Paris, Lyon, Nice and Bordeaux and thought train would be most convenient and cheaper to flying but can't work out if that's true or not or if it's best to have a single country pass or book individual tickets?

richardw

Where are you in the Uk?

Voyager2002

You have two issues: getting to France, and travel between your proposed destinations there. Since you plan to visit places that are far apart from each other, a pass is likely to be worthwhile (the really cheap tickets are generally to and from Paris). However, you need to sit down with Seat 61 and wade through the detail in order to make sure.

richardw

I have booked train tickets through voyages-sncf.com and printed them off at home before I travelled, easy website and good prices if booked in advance.

There are some direct services to Lyon from St Pancras.

There are more flights to BOD this year from LON airports on Ryanair, easyJet and BA.

Also consider the train route between Bordeaux and Lyon via Clermont Ferrand.

If you connect at Lille on the way back to the UK and change trains allow plenty of additional time for passport control.

Probably best to decide on your preferences and do some total cost comparisons between say three trip possibilities.

cabbage

Hi

if you don't fancy arranging it all yourself try Rail Canterbury. We've used them before and they took care of everything.

kuepper

richardw wrote: »

Where are you in the Uk?

Manchester, so I was thinking it's probably more economic to fly to/from Paris with my rail travel sandwiched inbetween

richardw

You could fly to Paris then train to Bordeaux, then train to Lyon and Nice and then fly from NCE to MAN.

kuepper

richardw wrote: »

You could fly to Paris then train to Bordeaux, then train to Lyon and Nice and then fly from NCE to MAN.

thanks, that sounds a good idea!