TVG train-Paris/Geneva
 

I need HELP-I want to take TVG from Paris to Geneva, rent a car and drive the French Alps. Since Geneva is in Switzerland, will I be able to cross the boarder several times? Is Geneva even the right town to take the train to or should I stay in France and rent the car somewhere close to Geneva?Where can I find a travel agent who knows something about the TVG? I'm tired of using travel agents who say they know about things when they really don't.

As far as I know, you can cross the border more than once. I have done it on my trips.

You can buy your own TGV ticket. Why rely on a travel agent?

Search this forum for info on buying from the sncf, the French national rail system.

www.sncf.com and click on the English flag for English.

There are several departures per day.
Right now you can do better price wise at Rail Europe, which in the past has been more expensive.

The price is sensitive to the time of day at which you travel.

You can also get train schedule information at the Swiss site, www.sbb.ch.

It gives the same data as the French site, but is more easily used.

There are departures beginning at 7:10 and again at 8:40. 10:30, 13.14, 14:38. 17:40 and 19:10

Travel time is about 3.5 hours give or take a few minutes.

You can look up your own schedules.

Rent through Auto Europe is my suggestion because it is a broker that negotiates deals with various car companies and will usually support you if you have a claim for over charging.
They have helped me get a refund once in the past when I had a dispute!

I'm not sure if it's still available, but when we purhcased our tickets from SBB in 2002 they mailed the tickets to us in the States.

Hi C,

Good advice from Bob.

Also try www.gemut.com, www.novacarhire.com and www.kemwel.com

>I'm tired of using travel agents who say they know about things when they really don't.<

That's why you come to us. Collectively, we know everything about everywhere. :)

((I))

I've been doing some extensive planning for an upcoming trip in this region. Based on that experience, here are a few thoughts:

If you rent a car in one country and return it in another, you'll pay a big surcharge. I looked into renting a car in Switzerland and returning it in France, and the extra cost was about 600 Euros.

I don't believe you have to pay any extra fees just for crossing borders, though, so you'll probably be okay if you rent the car in Geneva, drive around in France, and then bring it to Geneva.

However, it seems that your main reason for picking Geneva was that you wanted to take the TGV there, and I don't believe that the TGV actually goes there. I may be wrong about this (someone please confirm), but I think that although there are great rail connections, there probably isn't a high-speed one. So maybe you might want to rent the car in Lyon, Dijon, or Valence, which are directly served by TGV?

Another nifty tip that I just learned, thanks to a helpful fodorite, is that the Geneva airport is actually one set of runways with two sets of terminals serving them, one in France and the other in Switzerland. So, if for some reason it would help to bypass Paris entirely, you could fly into Geneva, exit on the French side without ever entering Switzerland, and rent a car from the French side of the Geneva airport.

Why do you say the TGV does not go to Geneva?

The timetable certainly do not list any change of station when making a connection to the TGV in Geneva.

Also, the TGV makes only a few stops between Gare de Lyon and Geneva. I am not sure that the stops are all that close to the French alps.

Drop fees for car rentals are subject to negotiation and vary from agency to agency. You have to rent cars where there are agencies. Not every town has one.

TGV trains go directly to Geneva. The last part is on regular rails, so they don't go highspeed. But no change necessary.

I should have expressed myself more clearly... The TGV train keeps going to Geneva (and maybe even farther along the lake?) but it slows down at the end. And the full-speed TGV makes stops that are closer to Paris. So the OP might be going farther than he/she needed to, depending on in which direction he/she wanted to be driving.

FWIW, the 600 Euro figure quoted to me by Autoeurope was for a Europcar contract.

The last stop for the TGV between Paris and Geneva is Geneva Gare. And no, it does not go through the Alps but through the Jura. What the OP can do is take another train one stop to the airport and rent a car from the French side so that they can return the car to France and avoid the high fees for returning to another country.

The SNCF is currently having a promotion on the TGV Lyria (that's the name of the TGV to Switzerland):

Paris - Genève 20€**

Paris - Bern 20€**

Paris - Lausanne 20€**

Paris - Neuchatel 20€**

And the promotion goes on to proclaim: Ride in 1st class for only 1€ more.

Naturally, tickets are limited.

SNCF's "Flash" promotion - €20 2nd cls and + €1 on 1st cls - was over midnight July 1st according to the SNCF newsletter I received and it was valid only for August travels. I got Geneva - Paris for 21€ each travel on 1st cls. for the last weekend of August, yeah.

You don;t have to go to the airport to "arrive on the French side." As I recall the TGV arrives at the Cornavin station on the French side also. You can probably find a car rental agency based on the French side also.

No, there is no car rental agency at French part of the Geneva Cornavin station. At Geneva airport, this works mainly because a part of the airport is IN France (Geneva pays the rent fot the use of French ground)and you can go out of the airport direct to French territory but at Geneva Cornavin station that is in the middle of the city, once out of the French part of the station, you are in Swiss territory, there is no exit for France.

Why not just take TGVs to the French Alps and not Geneva? Annecy and Chambery are quite near the best of the French Alps

Practically all trains coming from Paris stop at Geneva Station first and Geneva aeroport second
Assuming the OP doesn't want to go to the airport, he can take a taxi to Annemasse and rent a car there. Depending on where he wants to go in the French Alps, he might even save time (and trouble).

> Practically all trains coming from Paris stop at Geneva Station first and Geneva aeroport second.

Sorry, that's wrong. No trains coming from France go to Geneva airport. The terminus is Geneva Cornavin (City Center). Most trains coming from north (e.g.Zurich, Basel) and from east (Wallis and Italy) do go to the airport after Cornavin.

"Sorry, that's wrong. No trains coming from France go to Geneva airport".

Sorry, I should have said "with a very short connecting time" as indicated on the SNCF site which gives schedules for Paris to Geneva airport.