Day stops enroute to/from Paris
 

Hi there! We are doing a walking tour in the Bordeaux region in August. We will arrive from Brussels via TGV (having spent a week in The Netherlands and Belgium) and want to break up the train ride. We thought to stop somewhere halfway- say Angers or Ambroise. We would then spend the afternoon walking and seeing the town and any important sights. After our walking tour we head to Paris and want to stop half way again to break up the train ride. Would Bourges be a good stop for the afternoon?

Or is there any other towns enroute to Paris that are worth a short stop? Or should we go straight to Paris - we already have 5 nights there before flying home.

Thanks for any advice!

I don't know if the TGV allows you to do that..unless you're thinking on buying tickets for each leg. You can't do it here in Spain.

Well, you'll have to be sure you're on a TGV that makes stops, first of all.

Angers is a wonderful town and would make a nice stop, but I don't know how easy it would be to get there from Brussels. There isn't a way to get to Amboise easily if you're starting off on a TGV from Brussels.

La Rochelle isn't halfway, but it would also make a nice stop.

Well, we would go from Brussels via Paris to Angers for the night, and then on to Bordeaux. It look like a direct route. Then we would return to Paris from Bordeaux stopping perhaps in Bourges or ? for a night. We would have a Benelux Saver Pass that should allow us up to 6 days travel.

France rail map, schedules:

http://downloads.raileurope.com/map_...pe/france.html

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

I don't think you can do that on a TGV, either, as you need a reservation for a specific train. You can stop, of course, you'd just need to have two separate tickets. You can do it with a regular ticket, though (stop in the middle of the route). Bourges isn't really on the way from Angers to Paris, and it isn't on the same rail route from Bordeaux to Paris, either. Why don't you go to Poitiers? It's more in-between Bordeaux and Paris on the same rail route, and has a TGV route.

OK I guess I AM confused! Thanks for the map RonZ! I hadn't been able to find one that made sense to me. I thought we could just pick a destination and do transfers if needed to get to it. I guess the TGV is not the answer but can we do this via the local train system between the small towns (eg buy a ticket Bordeaux to Amboise via Tours?) Or throw the train idea out the window and rent a car for 2 days going back to Paris from Bordeaux and stop where we like?! Whew!

You can do this, just not on the TGV. You're not covering huge distances, so the train trips will be relatively short. Look at the SNCF site. And no need to buy tickets ahead of time.