I am trying to plan my trip, which will consist of a week in London and then a week in France, beginning in the Dordogne. I am finding that the low cost airlines from London to France are not so low cost for the date I want to travel. I remember reading here somewhere that the best way to take the train would be to take the Eurostar to Lille and switch to the TGV or some other train, but I can no longer locate this information on the board or in my notes. Any suggestions for routes? Once I know where I would be going, I can compare the cost to the cost of flying.

There are a couple of trains a day from Lille-Europe to Angouleme and Bordeaux, and one train a day from the "other" station at Marne la Valee (which requires a walk from the Marne station the Disney Eurostar arrives at) to Toulouse. Both routes then require a further change to a local train into the Dordogne proper.

Otherwise, you have to cross Paris to take a train from Montparnasse or the Gare de Lyon to France's Southwest.

There's quite a wide selection of flights to southwest France, including the conventional Dordogne airports, from Southampton and Birmingham. Both airports have direct train services from London, taking around an hour. FlyBe is the main operator, but you may find others from the airports' websites.

Flights to the Dordogne obviously fill up when the villa owners are travelling, such as at school half terms and at weekends. You might find better fares by quite small changes to the day you're travelling.

Hi N,

When are you going?

Have you checked www.whichbudget.com?

Flanner, thanks for the suggestions, I'll check those routes.

Ira, I used whichbudget.com to find out which airlines to check, and the routes I checked were pretty expensive for my date (July 14) and the dates around it. That's why I am looking into the train.

Try www.bahn.de for train connections.