sandi_travelnut

I don't even have specific travel days yet, but I'm toying with the idea of taking a cooking class that I saw, which is in Uzes. I was thinking about flying into Paris, staying a few days, taking the train to Lyon maybe for a few days then train to Uzes. If I fly into Paris, where down South should I fly out?

PalenQ

How about winding your way down to Nice, which is very nice and a lot of nice places around it easily reachable by public transports - spend some days in the Avignon area as Uzes is poorly served by public transportation- does it even have rail service - I think not - so take the TGV train to Avignon-TGV station and then a bus if as I recall Uzes don't have rail service.

Lyon is nice but I think a few days in the Arles-Avignon area would be more nice - use Avignon as a base then bop over to Uzes. check www.voyages-sncf.com for trins schedules and fares - book werll in advance for nifty discounts - www.capitainetrain.com is a better booking site - esier to use for all reports than the official sncf.com site - same trains and same prices I believe.

For lots of neat stuff on French trains check www.seat61.com - great info on discounted train tickets; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com.

Marseilles' airport is a short enough train ride from Avignon-TGV station should you want to fly out of there - or go back to Lyon Satolas - the two major airports in that area but ending on the Cote d'Azur in Nice could be very nice!

greg

I would look at both ways: into Paris, coming back from the South such as NCE as well as flying into NCE and coming back from Paris.

You will be in cities on different days. Different airport combinations might offer different benefits.

Arrival/departure from France might favor one way over another. I don't like landing super early and cannot check-in until afternoon. Into CDG and coming back from NCE, for example, might mean early CDG arrival and early NCE departure - a ho hum combination. If you reverse it, you might get afternoon arrival in NCE where you can immediately check-in and more leisurely late morning/noon return from CDG. Also, we tend to do shopping in Paris, and returning from CDG means we don't have to carry them while traveling in France.

In my experience, about a half of cooking classes got cancelled. Sometimes I don't know the cancellation until a week before the class and unless you have thought about the possibility, you can get stuck in a hotel convenient only for a cooking class.

PalenQ

Just to confirm you cannot take a train to Uzes - no train station or service accoridng to www.bahn.de/en which I use for all European train schedules - easiest one to quickly get schedules for any dates. Nothing for Uzes - probably buses from Nimes or Avignon.

PalenQ

http://www.rome2rio.com/s/Uz%C3%A8s/Gare-d-Avignon-TGV

How to get to Uzes from Avignon by bus or other ways!

sandi_travelnut

Thank you so much for the info!