Dayle

It's been way too long since I visited France and I have to make some arrangements for someone going for the first time (business). I checked the sncf site, but couldn't find schedules for the life of me! Pointers, please?

Person needs to go from CDG - Heuville-Saint-Claire (SP?) near Caen - Paris - CDG. Is there a TGV on this route?

Thanks!

Palenque

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en?

the German rail site here is certainly one of the easiest and best to use for any train in europe

be sure of the spelling however and if it does not turn up then you can be pretty sure there is no rail service so try the nearest larger city.

stations like Caen have local buses that fan out to surrounding towns from its train station.

Christina

If you can't read French, you should use the bahn website. If you can, you probably wouldn't be asking as they are pretty clear (hit the button saying "horaires seuls" under the fill-in box for your trip).

Palenque

Nothing comes up on bahn.de site about Heuville-Saint-Claire when i tried

JeremyinFrance

The SNCF is awful! It looks like it was produced by some teenage flash designers on acid. They forgot the basic function of the website, to give customers the information they need. I agree with Bahn.de - a much better site.

justretired

Thanks, I'll take a look at the German site. The French site is the most useless thing I've ever seen in my life.

For one thing, the English and French versions of the site behave differently:

http://sncf.fr/
http://sncf.fr/en_EN/flash/

The English site, at the lower-right, under "Buy tickets", only seems to offer you the TGV, not other possibilities. That's once you get into it by skipping the cutesy Flash introduction by clicking on "Acceder le site" (very clever for what is supposed to be the "English" version).

The French site makes a different offer, "Consulter les horaires" (consult the schedules), which sounds good. I can find trains from "Paris" to "Caen", but they all start from Paris St. Lazare. If I try to start from CDG, it brings me back to the same scheduling screen, with no error comment to tell me what went wrong, or if it understood my request.

Like many French web sites, I've noticed, this site is full of Flash eye-candy, but it's cluttered and hard to use. The programmers seem to want to keep full control of your every action - you can't open pages in other tabs or new windows unless they do it for you. Just a mess.

GeoffHamer

I think you want Hérouville St Clair which is on tram route B from Caen SNCF station (www.twisto.fr).
Trains to Caen go from Paris St Lazare station; there are no direct trains from the airport to Caen. They are not TGVs, but the journey only takes a couple of hours.

Dayle

Thanks everyone! I had used the sncf site years ago with no problem, but now - flash and useless eye candy is right! Very scary colors.

Geoff, thanks. That is exactly what I needed to know. Now can look for trains with the station info.

Merci

Palenque

Well Geoff it's a sham tram and 'tram' in name only but it will get you there just like a real tram.

GeoffHamer

The Caen trams run on pneumatic tyres, but are guided by a central rail and powered by electricity. Each articulated tram has 150 seats.
There are ticket machines at the stops - you must buy a ticket before boarding the tram.

justretired

I thought I'd mention that there's another similar thread currently running, "French TGV reservations: what happens if you (your plane) is late?":

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ne-is-late.cfm

And readers of this thread may be interested in "MorganB's French Rail SNCF Booking guide version 2", although it goes back to 2006:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-version-2.cfm

We're also considering flying to Montpellier instead of taking the TGV.

Larry

Palenque

Yup the Caen tram is a trolley-bus in effect, guided by a metal strip in the pavement so can be driver-less though i cannot remember when i was in Caen if there were drivers or not - think there were but with no driving to do. These types of trolley buses i believe can continue on regular streets with other motors - or plans are for to.

justretired

I just booked a trip from Paris CDG to Montpellier on voyages-sncf.com. If you're interested in the details, you can find them here:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...omment-5727806

Larry

Southam

The admirable blog Paris By Train offers a step-by-step guide to buying SNCF tickets via Internet, in English, from North America. Considerable savings over RailEurope are possible. See the site at http://parisbytrain.com/tgv-tickets/

Dayle

Thank you Southam! I'll look it up. I've never felt it necessary to purchase in advance, but I may do it for this traveler.

Man_in_seat_61

The SNCF site for train travel is www.voyages-sncf.com, not the SNCF company group website sncf.com.

It does indeed have a UK flag underneath to turn it to English, but instead of just changing the language it transfers you to mini-site www.tgv-europe.com. Which is fine, as long as you don't select the ticket delivery country as 'USA' when it will bump you to raileurope.com with higher prices. Selecting 'Great Britain' will probably allow ticket collection in France as an option, so OK to select this even if you're not a Brit, 'France' is actually what you want, to collect tickets at any main station nin France, but it then switches you back to Frenh on the assumption that if you want tickets delivered in France you must speak French.

Quite why they can't have a website available in several languages, each with a separate selctor for ticket delivery country, is beyond me.

I've posted step-by-step help with using www.voyages-snf.com in French at www.seat61.com/France-trains.htm.

Uisng it in French is often the easiest way, because how mcuh French do you really need to know to understand dates, times and places?