Provence to Loire Valley
 

My husband and I are going to France in Sept'08. Spending a week in Provence and will have a rental car for the week. We are planning to go to Loire Valley after Provence for 2-3 days.
Question: Should we keep the car and drive up to Loire Valley (Amboise) from Provence or return the car and catch the train. If we get the train, do we have to go to Paris and then down to Loire?

Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks, CJ

There is a TGV train that departs Avignon TGV station at 12:09pm & arrives at St Pierre des Corps (Tours) at 4:22.

Stu Dudley

That TGV does not run on Sundays in Sept, but there is a no-train-change one that departs a few hours later in the day (Sundays only).

Stu Dudley

Awesome. Thanks Stu for that advice. We plan on leaving on Monday so that should work out great. I will check it out.

CJ

This would be "if" you're comfortable with the car. We wanted to go from Provence to the Loire in 2005. We used it as an opportunity to drive up through the Dordogne.

We spent one night near Carcassone, two at La Roche Gigeac on the Dordogne River (which only whetted our appetite to go back for more), then ended up in Amboise.

Of course that meant we didn't make it to the western Loire, so here we go this coming May!