kwren

We will be staying in Nice without a car for 2 weeks and would like to determine a meeting point halfway between Nice and Lyon. We have friends who live near Lyon who would like to drive, with 3 kids, to meet us. So...they are in a car and we are on the train.

The other part is what to do wherever we choose to keep the kids (ages 8, 5 and 1) happy. Without a car we need something near the train station. This will be on the last Saturday of February.

My thoughts are Avignon (although we have been there so would prefer somewhere else, all things being equal), Aix-en-Provence or maybe Marseille.

Any thoughts on a meeting point with activities nearby?

StuDudley

Aix would be a 6+ hr round trip for your Lyon friends - which I would not want to do in February with 3 kids. Marseille & Arles would be pretty much the same. Nimes would be a 5 1/2 hr trip for your friends - but not as many good train options for you.

Avignon would be a 5 hr round trip for your friends.
Your train options are:

Nice to Avignon Ville - 1 train change
Lv 7:02 ar 10:32
lv 9:24 ar 13:02

Avignon Ville to Nice 1 train change
lv 17:45 ar 20:55

Stu Dudley

StCirq

Orange would be a little closer for your Lyon friends than Avignon, but I don't know about the train connections.

StuDudley

Orange would be a 4 1/4 RT for your friends

Orange would be 10 1/2 hrs on the train for you.
Lv 7:24 ar 12:35 1 train change

Lv 15:24 ar 20;34 1 train change

Lot of travel for about 2 1/2 hrs with your friends.

If this was my trip, I would meet your friends in Lyon. It is only a 4 1/2 hr trip there by TGV with 0 train changes and many departures daily.

Lv 7:24 ar 11:58

Lv 16:06 ar 20:37

Or - better yet, consider an overnight in Lyon for you. Wonderful city - don't forget the Traboules:
http://www.francetoday.com/articles/...traboules.html

Stu Dudley

justineparis

I vote Lyon.. its such a nice place for you to visit anyways.. and 4.5 hours with no connections sounds better then some of those other journeys.

janisj

I'm far from an expert since I've only been in the area twice . . . but when I read your post Lyon was the only place that made any sense to me.

Then I read stu and justine's posts and . . . . yep. Go meet them in Lyon.

traveller1959

Here are the arithmetics:

Lyon: 9 hours RT for you, 1? for your friends
Avignon: 7 hours for you, 5 for your friends
Aix-en-Provence: 6 hours for you, 6 for your friends

However, TGV stations are often out of town.

Christina

If these friends like in France, you'd think they would know the area and have an idea of what they want to do, rather than depending on someone who doesn't.

The question is. do they want to have an outing and go somewhere else or not? It wasn't stated, maybe they don't want to just stay at home. YOu'd think they would have had some ideas. If they don't want to drive anywhere, sure, Lyon makes sense.

I do think Avignon is probably the best idea for a good place with stuff to do, but I'm not clear on the idea of what needs to be near the train station. Just the destination, I presume.

I quite liked Orange, that's not a bad idea for a change, either. But it also isn't even clear if the friends want a mini-holiday for a while and will stay some days. IN that case, why not Aix or Marseille if they want to go there. I might not want to stay in Orange for a long time.

traveller1959

From my parental experience, I would say, the parents should decide what activities would be good for the kids. (Our kids loved the Papal Palace in Avignon as well as the Roman archeology in Provence.)

I stumbled upon another statement: "We will be staying in Nice without a car for 2 weeks". Really? What do you want to do there for two full weeks without a car? - Many number-one-attractions of the Côte d'Azur are accessible by car only, especially the famous corniches between Nice and Monaco and the Corniche de l'Esterel between Cannes and Saint-Raphael and also many of the picturesque hilltop villages in the hinterland. Okay, you have plenty of time to use public transport.

StuDudley

IMO, there is a BIG/HUGE difference between a day-trip of 5-6 hrs for the friends in a car in February with 3 kids, and 0 hrs for the friends and 9 hrs on the (1st class?) TGV for kwren.

Kwren - are the friends OK with 5-6 hrs in the car??

Stu Dudley

justineparis

And the tgv station is right in Lyon..

StCirq

This is a daytrip? I think I missed that. Sounds like one of those ill-conceived "so, we'll both be in France on the same day - let's meet up" plans. Frankly. I would either just go to Lyon and meet them there (and spend a couple more days there) or put off this notion until there is some reasonableness associated with the plan. Why don't you cut short some of those 2 weeks in Nice and go north and enjoy a few days in and around Lyon?

emilya4

I really enjoyed Lyon as well. It's not as crowded and fast moving as Paris, but has a lot of the same charm.

kwren

I'll try to answer all the questions, and appreciate them all! Don't worry, I'm not a troll - I knew how this would all sound as I was typing it. It's just hard to give every detail.

Stu - my friends suggested meeting in Avignon as soon as they heard we would be in Nice. That's what started the ball rolling. don't think they want to turn it into a weekend but since they suggested it, we decided to go along with it since we rarely get to see them. Because of a lot of travel time, I asked if they would be bringing the kids and the answer was, of course! That's cool - I would like to meet their kids. We've taken our kids since young ages on the 7 1/2 - 8 hour plane ride to Europe many times so 3 hours at a shot doesn't really seem so bad.

Stu - were those times to Avignon on a TGV or regional train and is there a train change? I probably went to the wrong website for info.

Christina - I guess if they wanted to stay home, they wouldn't have offered to meet us in Avignon, at least I hope that is the case.

Traveller - as far as the car goes, we are really going to Nice for Carnaval, taking the train to Menton a couple of times for the Lemon Festival, relaxing. There is a lot to do just with these festivals. We purposely wanted to spend 2 weeks in one place for the first time ever. If we decide to go to a flower festival in Tourettes-sur-Loup or go to Vence or a couple of other places we've considered, we could get a car for a day if we feel like it. We also want to go to Eze - there is a direct bus. We didn't really want to get a car for driving to Avignon though.

If we take the train, I imagine they won't have room in their car for us - not many mini vans over there - thus the reason to do something near the train station, but that would be up to them. We'd be happy to sit and talk in a restaurant, but not many kids could take that. I agree with the parents planning what to do based on their kids, but they haven't done that and we do need to make some sort of plans - we are leaving soon.

By the way, the "friend" was an exchange student we hosted starting 20 years ago for 4 summers and we went to his wedding (in Lyon) about 7 years ago. We loved Lyon, although didn't visit the Traboules, but don't feel the need to go back this trip if it means that we only see them for a few hours. Our student was/is young (compared to us anyway) and maybe hasn't traveled much or needed to give traveling much thought, so I'm giving him a pass. We are willing to put the effort into seeing him and his family although I agree it isn't the ideal situation. The thought of 9 hours of travel when he doesn't mind some driving might not be ideal for us given it is one day.

I do appreciate all the suggestions. I had obviously thought of many other places, but not Lyon, and thanks for the travel time comparisons. That's a very long day for us though and for some personal reasons, we do need to stay in Nice the entire time, although a day trip isn't out of the question. We survived a long day trip from Rome to Pompeii and Naples and back, and many other long day trips, so we will also survive this, no matter where we end up.

We also hosted another student 15 years ago and went to his wedding as well about 12 years ago. That family decided to come to Nice for a weekend to see us. Mini vacation for them and we are included. Very nice.

My friends (and yes they are French and should know what to do and where to go, I agree) suggested the meeting in Avignon, but I'm having trouble getting in touch with them because of complicated schedules on both our parts, and time is getting short, so I thought I'd see if their suggestion really made sense by asking here. Thanks for all the thoughts and suggestions. I'm going to nix Aix, not consider Orange. Avignon might be the best after all as they first suggested, as long as we are in agreement that we really don't want to spend 9 hours on the train going to Lyon, but we will discuss that too. In any case, we'll catch up on our sleep on the trains!

StuDudley

Train to Avignon was the TGV to the Avignon TGV station outside of Avignon, then either the train to Avignon Ville or a taxi into Avignon.

But 2 1/2 to 3 hrs each way for your friends with 3 kids in the car in February??? We live quite a bit south of Provence in San Francisco, and 6 hrs to Big Sur & back next week would be much more driving than I would want to do with only 10 hrs of daylight - but we are older than your friends.

Stu Dudley

traveller1959

Take the TGV from Nice-Ville dep. 7:02 to Avignon TGV arr. 10:02. Then you can wait 26 min. for the connection to Avignon Centre (dep. 10:27 arr. 10:32) or, preferably, a taxi (15 min.) to the Palace of the Popes which is Avignon's main attraction and certainly interesting for the kids.

http://www.palais-des-papes.com/en

Visit the Palace together with your friends and have lunch together afterwards.

kwren

Stu - thanks for that train info. Is the best website for train info SBB or do you recommend something else? Driving with kids was their immediate suggestion/choice so who am I to argue?

Traveller - thanks for the train details. (You anticipated my next questions!) Taxi sounds good and we have a plan.

StuDudley

Use the German train site. For some reason, Fodors will not allow me to provide that link.

Dates are in DD/MM/YY format.

Take the train from Nice Ville to Avignon TGV, and then either taxi or another train to Avignon Centre (which is just outside the medieval walls of Avignon). Use Avignon Centre as the destination if you anticipate training to Avignon Center).

Stu Dudley

kwren

I think SBB is Swiss so you must mean the db bahn site?

traveller1959

This is the French railway site:

http://www.sncf.com/en/passengers