waratah

I and a friend are travelling in Sept to italy and france and intend to see tuscany and cinque terre through to genoa then catch some trains to toulouse, france (then get to sarlat le caneda in dordogne where we have an offer of a house )
! It seems tricky to catch train connections through these areas?
At some point we want to see the toulouse latrec museum also but otherwise will drive around dordogne.
I am not sure how long the train journey from genoa, italy to toulouse would take? Does anyone know?
Also whether i should hire a car in toulouse because the train connections via Brive to sarlat seem tricky but I'm scared of driving on high speed autoways and wonder how fast little hire cars can go anyway? Has anyone any advice for me?
Next stop is loire valley for one night then near Giverny to see monet's garden then ditch the hire car and catch train to paris. Again, the driving between areas is freaking me out - are there reasonable roads that are main roads but not very high speed?? thanks for your help in advance!

Michael

You don't give any time limits. If there are none, why not rent the car in Menton and drive on the Nationale and Départementale through the Provence, up the Gorges de l'Ardèche and down the Gorges du Tarn to Albi (the Toulouse Lautrec museum), and then on to Sarlat? All this is very pretty country, would take a few days, and would keep you off the autoroute. Similarly you can go to the Loire valley without taking the autoroute. Unlike Switzerland and Austria, the alternatives to the autoroutes are well marked in France.

GeoffHamer

Use www.bahn.de to check train schedules.

gtproteam

Hi - we are also interested in knowing how we can get from Cinque terra to Toulouse - have you had any luck.Also, where have you managed to book in Cinque Terra. We're going in August and still need to book accomodation.

Carlux

The French train site, http://www.voyages-sncf.com/ shows trains from Genoa to Toulouse - but not easily. Two stops, and 12 hours, arriving late at night. And it doesn't run every day. the week I checked in September it seemed to only run on the weekend. You might be able to take a train to Nice, for instance, spend some time there, and take a train the next day, but it wont be easy to do it all in one day.

From Toulouse you can see Albi, and the Toulouse Lautrec museum (this is NOT in Toulouse).

From Toulouse you can catch a train to the Dordogne, stopping in Cahors to pick up a car. (No need to go to Brive, which is north of where you want to be. Since you would be coming from the south, Cahors is the better place.)

OR, you could drive from Toulouse, which is not difficult, and takes about 2 1/2 hours to get to Sarlat. I would definitely choose this option. A rental car will have no difficulty on the autoroute, and once you are clear of Toulouse, which is a reasonably small city, the autoroute is a pretty easy, and attractive drive.

OR you could pick up a car somewhere just inside France (train goes to Nice, for instance) and drive all the way, but the drive along the coast is always busy and full of trucks. Probably the worst kind of autoroute driving. And across country, while more attractive, takes a very long time. You dont want to pick up a car in Italy and pay expensive drop off costs for leaving the car in a different country.

What you have to realise is that you are travelling a long distance, and it will not be easy any way. It looks like you will probably have a very long train ride, and arrive late at night, when your options are limited.

So perhaps thinks of other options, like stopping somewhere along the way for a day or two, taking advantage of what's in between Genoa and Sarlat.