Can anyone advise
(i) best way to get from Gard de Lyon to Gard Montparnasse (and time it takes? train or taxi?) &
(ii) best way from Bordeaux to St Cyprien...through Sarlat or Perigueux??
thanks

According to the official itinerary given by the RATP (the métro), it will take 25 minutes by métro with a change at the Châtelet station.

Are you planning to take the train to Sarlat or Périgueux? If so, it might be best to take a train directly to Périgueux via Limoges (change in Limoges) unless there is a quick connection in Bordeaux. I am not aware of a train connection to Sarlat.

Michael..thanks for response. We are travelling by train from Bordeaux and wish to get to St Cyprien. We think we may have to hire a car at either Sarlat or Perigueux. Previously thought there was a train from Bordeaux, change at Le Buisson to Sarlat??

Why not get the car in Bordeaux? In Limoges, the Europcar agency is in the train station itself.

One of the Air France shuttles that runs from Roissy goes to both Gare de Lyon and Gare Montparnasse. I don't recall if I've ever seen anyone use it just for travel between those two stations, but I'm guessing you can do that. It only costs 11.5 euro to take it from Roissy to either of those stations, so it can't be much to ride between stations.

There is no train station in St-Cyprien. Take the train from Bordeaux to Périgueux and pick up your car there. It's an hour train ride and costs 13 euro. There are train connections to Sarlat from Bordeaux, but they are infrequent and make loads and loads of stops. It will be a 45-minute drive from Périgueux to St-Cyprien (add an hour or so if you've not driven out of Périgueux lately and aren't familiar with all the new roundabouts).

It's a 5-hour train trip from the Gare Austerlitz through Limoges to Périgueux (there are no trains to Limoges from Gare Montparnasse). You either change trains in Limoges or sit on the train for 10 minutes while they disengage some of the cars.

It's generally a faster trip to take a TGV to Bordeaux or Libourne, then take CoRail to Périgueux, not to mention less expensive if you get one of the frequent PREMs deals from Paris to Bordeaux.

And it's faster to take CoRail to Périgueux from Bordeaux and then pick up a car and drive to St-Cyprien. It's a 2.5- to 3-hour road trip from Bordeaux to St-Cyprien on a dangerous and not very interesting road.

I think in fact there is now a station in St Cyprien - it re-opened last year after about 30 years of being closed. It would be the Bordeaux/Bergerac/Sarlat line. However, I can't find a train using the sncf site, so who knows. If there are trains stopping there, I agree with St Cirq that that line is very slow with many stops.

The other option if you're coming from Paris is to take the train from Gare d'Austerlitz to Brive and pick up a car there. Its 4 hours on the train, no changes. Depends on your schedule and which fits better, directly south to Brive or swing west to Periguex.

I'm doing this journey in a few weeks. We're taking the TGV to Libourne, and picking up our rental car there. Since we arrive before noon, we'll be stopping in St Emilion for lunch and 'touristing' before continuing on to St cyprien.

I think there must be a train station in St Cyprien because I looking into buying tickets to Bordeaux, and the SNCF website has the town listed.