merrittm

Greeting Fodorites! I'm dipping into this wealth of knowledge for my May/June 07 France trip. After shepherding a niece and a nephew around Paris for 9 days, I have one free day before my French course begins. The course is in the Vendee, nearest little rail station is Chantonnay or La Chataigneraie, and a slightly bigger station is La Roche sur Yon.

I'd like to see Mont St Michel, and I don't see a problem getting there from Paris and spending the night. The problem is getting from Mont St. Michel to the Vendee. According to the train sites, there aren't any trains I could take until 4:28PM, and that won't get me to La Roche sur Yon until 10PM,leaving a further drive to the school.

Question - Am I looking at theproper sites for train travel? Can someone else find a better schedule? Or would a car be better?

If so - where can I find approximate car travel times from point to point? Is there a website that has this?

Driving alone, is this area difficult to drive? Is it well marked?

Or lastly, should this stopover to Mont St Michel be eliminated from the schedule?

I would truly appreciate any input.

cruzan19

This isnt answering your travel question, but i just had to suggest walking "across the sea" to the castle! I did the walking tour 2 yrs ago and it was worth it! quick sand and seals and more.

PalenqueBob

Pontorson-Mont-St-Michel
La Roche sur Yon Mo, 11.12.06
Mo, 11.12.06
dep 9:31
arr
14:52
takes a total of 5:21
requires changes in Rennes and Nantes

For schedules for the date you want i would use the superb German Rail web site, www.bahn.de, which has schedules for all of Europe and is the easiest to use i've encountered. A good way to access the English bahn.de site's schedule page is to go to: www.budgeteuropetravel.com and on their home page click on the link All european railway timetables, or some such wording, and up pops the English schedule page where you just put in Pontorson (station six miles from Mont SMichel itself, technically called Pontorson-Mont-Saint-Michel station) and La Roche sur Yon, the date and you'll get all the schedules for that day - then hit on 'details for the above' and it will break down where and when you must change. the home page i referenced also gives several nice tips on using the bahn site.

Alternatively you can also go to www.voyages-sncf.com, the French rail site for similar info - but the bahn site has always proven the easiest for me to use.

That said, trains from Pontorson to Rennes are spotty - just a few a day and different from day to day - as schedules aren't loaded for May just put in the day of the week you want to travel and the schedule for May will probably be the same - it's the day of the week that trains on this run will change. Buses run from Mont Saint-Michel to the Pontorson railway station.

PalenqueBob

And there are also Couriers Breton buses that go right from Mont Saint-Michel to Rennes train station in case on the day of the week you want to go there are no morning trains, which there may not be. These buses run about daily - Google Couriers Breton for schedules.

merrittm

Thanks, PalanqueBob, I'll give the Deutschebahn site a look. I was just getting so frustrated with the sncf site not getting me what I wanted.