FRANCE TRAIN TRAVEL
 

Hi,
I'm taking my family to France for the first time in AUgust. My question is what is the best way to get rail tickets? Is Europe on Rail the best way to get tickets? We will be in Paris 7 nights and will pretty much be in Paris except maybe a day trip to Versaille and Mt. St. Michel. We then will take an overnite train from Paris to Barcelona.

I wasn't sure if Europe on Rail is overpriced for the tickets?? Also is a museum pass worth the cost?

Thanks!

If you're referring to Eurrail, yes it's overpriced. To buy the cheapest tickets available go online aat www.voyages-sncf.com or www.tgv-europe.com starting 3 months out from your travel dates. There are explicit directions on how to do this elsewhere on Fodors. The only tickets you will need to purchase on either of those sites are the Paris>Barcelona one and possibly one to get to le Mont-St-Michel (though obviously there's no train station there - it's a bit complicated on public transportation and you'll have to research and figure out how you want to do that).

For getting around Paris, all you'll need are métro tickets. There are some métro passes that might work for you depending on which days of the week you'll be there. For Versailles, and possibly for getting from the airport into Paris, you'll need to use the RER (commuter train), and that will involve other tickets.

Only you can figure out whether a museum pass is "worth it." You have to figure out which museums you want to visit on which days, price them individually, add them up and see if the pass will save you money.

Never heard of 'Europe on Rail'. You're best off buying your tickets directly through SNCF, the French Railway (www.voyages-sncf.com) as soon as they become available. The PREM fares are the least expensive fares and you can now buy tickets using Pay Pal.

When buying tickets, select French as the language and have the pick up location in France, if you are not able to print them. Paris has several SNCF ticket offices where you can go to pick them up.

Or you can wait until you are in Paris and buy them there, but the PREM fares are only available online.

Yes, a museum pass can be worth the cost since you do not have to wait in line to buy tickets.
http://en.parismuseumpass.com

If you have an iPhone, iPod or iPad, you can download Patricia Wells' "The Food Lover's Guide to Paris". It's a great source (http://patriciawells.com).

http://www.elipsos.com/en/ - this is the site to score discounted berths on the Hotel Train between Paris-austerlitz and Barcelona - Elipsos is the company operating the trains.

do as St Cirq and Robert suggest for domestic French tickets - not to Versailles as that is a flat-fare RER ticket bought at the RER or metro station you chose to leave Paris from - RER C takes you to within a few blocks of the main palace entry.

Getting to Mont-Saint-Micehl is not hard at all - a snap - take a bullet train (TGV) to Rennes then hop on waiting buses that whisk you right to Mont-Saint-Michel itself and back in the late afternoon - buy two TGV tickets one for going and one for coming.

Note that discounted tickets are not refundable nor changeable from the specific train you book them on - and yes to get you should book weeks or months in advance. Check what full fare is it may mnot be that much more than the discount sometimes and those can be changed or refunded, etc. - full flexibility.

RailEurope in the U S, owned by the French Railways largely, is supposed to be starting to try to kind of match the discounted ticket prices so you may want to check them as well - www.raileurope.com.

For lots of great info on French trains and overnight trains in general check out www.seat61.com - great info on discounted online tickets; www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com.

Well, there are a number of ways to get to le MSM, and these days, if you can time it right, it makes more sense to take the TGV to Dol-de-Bretagne, then the bus to le MSM. When you buy your tickets on SNCF, they include the bus ride there and back. BUT there is only one bus going each way every day, so you do need to make sure the timing works for you.

Well from Rennes last I check there were three buses meeting morning trains and three buses going back to rendezvous with returning TGV trains - having only one bus option is OK too if timed right - anyway easy to go on your own and avoid the hectic group tour that probably also visits a zillion other places en route and often means an obscenely early reveille from your hotel bed and a return around midnight it often seems plus hundreds of bucks.