I understand that the more lead time in making a reservation, the less expensive the ticket, but you cannot do it more than 90 days in advance. I am trying to determine the best way to do this.

We will be arriving from Barcelona to Paris(CDG) on an Easy Jet flight which is supposed to arrive at 11:55 AM on the 11th of October. Wondering how much time to allow to be safe before booking a train? We won't be going through customs, as it is inter Europe flight, right? Should we go to Gare de Lyon and catch the TGV to Avignon or just stay put and take a train from CDG. I looked at the schedule and I see there is a note that some of the trains have 24 minutes to change trains. I assume that is a warning that you are cutting it close...would that be a correct assumption? My thought was that if we can get a train directly from CDG, the time spent won't be much different than the time spent getting to Gare de Lyon and we could catch lunch at the airport.
If we go to Gare de Lyon, what is an economical & relatively easy way with luggage?

Thanks in advance for any help and suggestions you can provide!
Jean

I don't know why you'd bother with the time and expense and hassle of going into the Gare de Lyon when there's a perfectly good train station right at the airport.

Have no idea what message you're seeing about 24 minutes to change trains. You don't normally change trains on the TVG from CDG to Avignon anyway - it's a straight shot. And for what it's worth, on many past trips where I've had to change trains I've had less than 10 minutes and it always worked out fine.

I'd give yourself two hours after landing, so look for a train around 2 pm.

The itinerary seems counter intuitive... Barcelona all the way to Paris only to reverse direction and go most of the way back toward Barcelona... have you looked into other ways of getting to Avignon from Barcelona? I realize the high speed line in Spain is not complete but routing via Paris seems odd.

Taking a quick look at the iDTGV site, when you select Roissy CDG to Avignon for October 11, the following note appears:

"Désolé, aucun train ne correspond à votre recherche.

A partir du 29 août, ce trajet n’est plus desservi."

So it seems that starting August 29, that route is no longer served.

On the voyages-sncf site, the following note appears:

"Votre trajet n'est actuellement pas disponible à la réservation sur le site. Consultez les informations sur les travaux en cours ou contactez le 3635 et dites "Billet" (0,34€ TTC/min, hors surcoût éventuel selon opérateur)."

Here the message is that your route is not currently available for reservation on the site, and you should consult information about work in progress.

So, it looks like direct service from CDG to Avignon is not available for your travel date.

There are trains running from Barcelona to Avignon on that date, taking 5-6 hours. That would take up less of your time than flying to Paris and taking the TVG to Avignon anyway.

Hi P,

>Wondering how much time to allow to be safe before booking a train?

Depends on how much luggage you have and whether the gods decide to smile on you.

I give you a 95% chance of making the 13:52. It is direct, and is cheaper than the 13:01 - which you could miss.

Well, thanks, but I have already booked my flight so that is a done deal. I did,however, after the fact, think of taking the train from Barcelona, but it seemed like having to make 2 changes coupled with the price I figured on leaving well enough alone. (at least that is what I saw when I checked a couple of weeks ago.)

St Cirq--yes, I agree that taking the train from the airport makes more sense, but yes, when I looked at the schedule, there were several choices--some trains go to Lyon, then you go to Avignon(that's where I saw the note about the 24 minutes). I was also considering which station I might prefer to have as the final destination...in town or out.

As for the French, I cannot understand all of that, MainGG, perhaps you would like to give me the total translation?

I thought I had restated the basic information from the French, but here's my best actual translation:

"Désolé, aucun train ne correspond à votre recherche.
A partir du 29 août, ce trajet n’est plus desservi."

Translation: Sorry, no train corresponds to your search. From August 29, this route (journey?) is no longer served.

"Votre trajet n'est actuellement pas disponible à la réservation sur le site. Consultez les informations sur les travaux en cours ou contactez le 3635 et dites "Billet" (0,34€ TTC/min, hors surcoût éventuel selon opérateur)."

Translation: Your route (journey?) is not currently available for reservation on the site. Consult the information on works in progress or contact the 3635 and say "Ticket" (0,34€ TTC/min, apart from additional surcharge determined by the operator).

Not quite sure how to translate the word "trajet" in the context of rail schedules, but route/trip/journey would be close.

It may be that TGV trains are available from CDG to Lyon, with a connection to Avignon. There are two stations in Lyon, Part Dieu and Perrache. Be sure your connection is in the same station when assessing the time needed.

The ID-TGV site does not list all of the TGVs that exist from the airport.

That's why I also looked at the voyages-sncf site.

BUT, in my haste to see what was offered on that site, I completely overlooked that October 11 was 91 days later. Today, 90 days prior, there are several trains listed from CDG-Avignon with PREMS fares as low as €22 euro.

Sorry for the confusion.

I recently booked the TGV from CDG to Avignon on the voyages-sncf.com french language site. If your comptuter does not automatically translate the site, try the cut and paste method. Highlight the text you want to translate, then click edit, select cut and click. Do a google search for "google translate" and when that page opens, choose french to english on the left, and click in the empty box and then click Edit,then paste. This will give you a workable translation of the french text. To print this, I then cut and paste the translated text to a Word document. I have to do a little rearranging but the meaning is relatively clear for those of us without French language skills. Good luck!

That's a great idea,and it mostly worked,but I keep getting stuck when it asks who is going and there is no way to add a name or f people. Cannot quite figure it out $%^** Frustration ensues!

Are you talking about where it says Qui participe à ce voyage? Right below that, it says Nombre de passagers. Just to the right of that is a line where you indicate the number of passengers.

StCirq, I saw that on the French site, but I could not enter anything on the translated site. I'll try again.

pumpkin, I have a Google Tool bar that comes up when a foreign language page loads. You then can choose to "translate" or "always translate......" {whichever language you are viewing. You might try googling for that toolbar which was a free download. With the method of cut and paste, you would have to use the translated text to understand the text, but would have to do your entering or "clicking" on the original page. I hope you can find the toolbar, it has been invaluable to me.