denisea

Do look at capitainetrain.com....very easy to follow, in English, with no diversions to Rail Europe.

There is so much to do in and around Paris...check out "Paris to the Past" by Ina Caro....full of easy trips from Paris for a day with the historical significance of the town/area.

I am dying to take a bike trip with French Mystique Tours and I still have museums in Paris I haven't made it to yet.

Inside Paris by Metro, we loved St Denis if you haven't been. Beautiful church that is the burial place of French kings. This past trip we finally made it to Musee Marmottan and should have taken more time to explore the area around the museum (which we loved).

Christina

$200 per ticket for RT to Aix is a lot, I wouldn't pay it either. I also wonder where you are getting those fare quotes. I think Sarastro is correct, you can't be using the SNCF website or you wouldn't be quoting dollars. So that is $100 each way, or about 70 euro. That wouldn't be impossible if it were regular fare, actually, as the PREM is around 30 euro. In fact, even on SNCF, you can find one-way fares around 90-105 euro at certain times of day on dates that may be very busy (for example, 3/18). So it could be a problem getting cheap fares if you must have a certain date and time, at this late date. On 3/18, you can get a fare for only 25 euro at 3:07 pm but the cheapest fare is 91 euro if you want to leave around 5 pm.